The Sentence

“Probable metastatic lesions
secondary to breast cancer.”
Complex words set
at the bottom of a page,
impenetrable jargon.

Two spots where pelvis
and spine are joined,
where motion fulcrums
down legs, a torso
and its twin concavities
lever up, fold down, torque
in slow rotation
living.

The words stare out
from the page; defiant,
aberrant cells nestling bone
foretell a pillow
blanketed in hair,
rosy skin sheltering
burning flesh beneath.
I offer platitudes,
empty aphorisms
neither she nor
I believe. For me
self-serving hope,
weak bracing
for a hastily built bridge
spanning a gulf
of absence and neglect:
a young girl abandoned,
a woman rediscovered.

For her, baby sister,
a smile born of the pain
of the surgeons’
hollow handiwork
across skull and chest,
an unguent smile
to soothe my
festering guilt.

We watch words
shatter against
the impenetrable reality.

Louis Faber is a poet residing in Port St Lucie, Florida. His work has previously appeared in Exquisite Corpse, Rattle, Cold Mountain Review, Eureka Literary Magazine, Borderlands: the Texas Poetry Review, Midnight Mind, Pearl, Midstream, European Judaism, Greens Magazine, The Amethyst Review, Arena Magazine (Australia), Afterthoughts, The South Carolina Review, Atlanta Review, and Worcester Review, among many others, and has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize.