Goodness, you’ve gotten some sun
scowls the doctor, hobbling
into the fluorescent room on her walker.
I work with horses, I explain
as if they were the source
of dangerous light.
Tell me about that, she says,
pointing at the raised spot on my sternum,
her pale, quivering touch
like the finger of God.
What she didn’t say
is that she only had months to live.
What she didn’t say
is that even this fright
of a small white room
houses hope.
I wake in the dark cradle of night,
fretting over the results,
fondling the gray patchy skin
where the cancer kissed me,
and I kissed back.
Published in Cider Press Review, Volume 26, Issue 2.
Julia Wendell’s sixth collection of poems, The Art of Falling, was published by FutureCycle Press in 2022. Another collection, Daughter Days, will be published by Unsolicited Press in 2025. A Pushcart winner and recipient of Fellowships from Breadloaf and Yaddo, her poems have appeared widely. 2023 winner of the Winston-Salem Poetry Award, she is Founding Editor of Galileo Press, lives in Aiken, South Carolina, and is a three-day event rider.
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