Not a death sentence,
but a return that flowers.
The hot breath
of a sealing kiss
on the silver scar
in the crease of a breast.
Veins grow shallow
and hard to tap.
A vapor spreads
or smoke curls gray
on the screen lit like
Vegas from ten thousand feet.
The surface grows
weak and flaked,
the skin loose and pink.
Spine wrapped in blossoms,
malignancy brightens
to a whiteness, wholly
light against depth
and empty darkness.
There’s a burden
of bundled masses.
The white and nebulous
against the black, transparent,
a monochrome doplar
that calls for rain.
Cross sectioned images
of a specimen that
dropped its petal.
–
C.M. Mildred Kabik teaches creative writing, literature, and communications at the Pennsylvania College of Art & Design in Lancaster, PA. She holds a Master’s in English from Arcadia University and is earning an MFA at Wilkes University. She is currently working on a collection of poems about the difficult relationship between the mind and body.
Lead image: “Now and Then” (edited, via Flickr user Alan Levine)