Cancer Sucks!

Wrote this after visiting a family at the hospital. A mother was protecting her sick daughter like a hawk. Her insurance wouldn't pay for vital medicines that would help her Bone Marrow Transplant 'stick.' The insurance payed for her transplant but not the meds that might keep the transplant from failing. Ughh. Dirty crooks! When the Case Manager approached the mother, the mother firmly stated the line that begins this poem. It hurt the Case Manager deeply. She shared two things with the mom. They were both African-American and both were women. The Case Manager later said, "It gets up next to me." She was speaking of the pain that gets so close it is almost yours. Willy helped make each line 10 syllables long. Thanks Willy.

Up Next to Me

“You come back when you can help my daughter.”
That criterion stifles me for good.
Sweaty hands to shake could persuade fairness,
Yet half truths and inequities creep up.
You can see ‘em coming a mile away,
Never too few and too often too late.

It rubs me raw like a horsehair sweater.
Her open anger--truly justified.
And it gets up next to me, I tell ya.
I breathe it in; it nests within my pores.
Not mine and too near to be separate,
But it gets up so damn close to me still.

Rib over rib under rib, breast to breast,
Up next to me yet within and ‘round her
Like steely flesh made for a wild creature--
One more accustom to a harsher life.
This soul desires justice innate yet knows
The lack of it separates her from me.

A few mysterious thoughts light on me
Like a sparse but unexpected flurry:
Fairest Jesus, get up in between us
And that which stealthily hangs upon us
Oh, but with bane eternal hooks for her.
We can see you coming a mile away.

And never too late.