Revelation

 

With eyes large as melons, she sweeps

into the waiting room, her long scarf

tacked to the top of her nail thin body,

its blue fringe falling down her neck

and shoulders—this is all that cancer

has left of her landscape.

 

Her husband is with her, but they do not touch. 

It must be painful for both of them now.

Although the cancer has pried them apart,

they balance each other still

and seem to waste nothing

adjusting old love to new selves.

 

Her silver body breathes like a flute

moving wisdom in and out.

I find myself wanting to be her,

not for one luminous minute, but forever. 

I want to be distilled, as she is,

to shining majesty, to acceptance.

 

When it's time to go, I pass in front of her,

deliberately walking through her air. 

She looks at me, and I wonder if she knows

that I carry with me the revelation she let loose

when she sat hunched over a clipboard 

printing her name neatly on another form. 

 

Carol Sanger

 

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