Fishy, ​​as my mother calls her lymph nodes. She tells me
her voice box is a box full of cancer. She says one day
the doctor drained my brother's tumor in an attempt to remove it.
I'm looking for “cancer images” and tiles and screen fills.
with spattered burrs flowing radiance from under
their edges. Each of them landed on the surface of the Moon.
I think about the man who destroyed the hornets' nests.
from our cornice. I'm thinking about double-sided cookware
which my mother used to cut melon balls…
a little tau, a little pies – brew in jelly. I don't
know whether the surgeon will scoop or scratch
my mother's throat is clear. But then nothing will calm down
that I know whether the tumor is a cup or a ball,
more shadow or lump. There's a Canadian doctor for that.
for which my mother is at her second appointment
wore a white sweater knitted around a Norwegian maple leaf.
I wanted to be remembered, she explains, by this woman.
who can't complete an errand without someone caring
see her and try to rally your children: This is her, the teacher
I told you about! Of course, the oncologist who will take
my mother's voice, expelling wasps, cutting out the ball
of the flesh, knows none of this. I can't imagine anyone
forgetting you, I say, and don’t cry, says mom,
in the voice of a stranger who couldn't tell the difference from mine.
