the alphabet
once scattered
throughout my blood
has metastasized producing a poem:
“Cancer and its Early
Equivocations”
a subcutaneous
haiku sequence
individual nodules
linked mainly
by their distinctive form
perhaps only
the harmless conceit
of an overly active
imagination
but something in me
wants the capital
T-cell truth
to be spelled out
accurately at last
in all its baroque
malignancy
give me straight talk
in off-rhyme
and halting measure
or an epigram, even
with murderous
closure
This poem “The Differential Diagnoses” originally appeared in Radio, Film, and Fiction. Spec. issue of Canadian Literature 225 (Summer 2015): 81.
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