sarcoma

Sarcoma
-for Sherri Snyder (7/7/57>6/11/19)

Day after day we woke
to cancer and rain.

The foreign cells
have foreign names—
there is no medicine for grief.

Bow down and fall,
the floor will catch you.
Bow down and fall with your full being—
let your brain spill from your skull.

In suffering there is grace
but this music is the gray music of dust—
the bloody subtraction of disease
in bright rooms performed
by gowned strangers
wearing masks.

We agree to die as we are born.

Letting go will break your heart. Let go.
As water is one with fish,
God is with us.

Only saints know the truth.

Outside of time, waiting to be born,
we sleep in the sweet light of longing—the sky is our skin.
And many worlds from now, we will meet again…

in a small town called Memory
a boy and girl will meet
and fall in love,

falling in love
like it’s the first time,

like it never happened to them before.