August 13, 2011

I want to be here for the next thing
she said, the friend I ran into yesterday.
Her life became a life of cancer five years
ago, when her boys were still boys.  
Now, her son says, she lives life raw.
It seems improbable that she will ever think
Their lives are settled now, now I can go.
Sons are sons forever.  So she shoves
herself, raw, through the tunnels of 
chemo and pain, for the privilege
of being here for whatever the next 
thing may be.