The body slumps, a sac of disasters waiting to happen:
cells poised to multiply like market values
before a crash, blood vessels as prone to sudden sag
as my grandmother’s stockings, or to swell and pop
like bubblegum in the mouth of a teen.
Hearts beating with the hutzpah of a Maserati
slam on the breaks in the middle of the road: done!
Obscure organs grab headlines with evil intent–
or the whole machinery sours with self-hatred
stronger than Hamlet’s in intricate self-sabotage.
K called to tell me about her goblet cells, stage IV, and
five percent chance with chemo—a woman
who should have had her path to heaven
strewn with rose petals. . .
What do we need road rage for, or AK-47s
in the hands of maniacs, cyclones, floods,
collapsing mines, Chernobyl or Fentanyl,
when our own sweet bodies can so turn
against us?
