When will the researcher walk into the room?
Will she be wearing sharp glasses?
Will she be ready, pen in hand, to jot down every possible cause, every place you have been, every carcinogen you digested?
Will she have a pony tail, because a single strand of hair, loosened by her shaking head, could cause her to skip a digit?
Will the researcher underline the words “camp,” or “frequent visits to Cambodia,” or “uranium mines in Canadian small towns”?
Will the researcher have a list of people, all with similar diseases, all who tested for “environmental causes,” all who are from a particular place, from a particular time?
Will she carry a map torn from an atlas, one she’s scribbled with circles and arrows?
Will she hold a chart with people and dates and names linked in webs of pencil grit?
Will the researcher have a clipboard holding a paper of fine legal print, ready for you to sign?
Will she say I’m glad I met you, or there are many like you, in your situation?
Will she say class, or action, or law, or suit?
Will you be the last piece of the puzzle?
And when she walks out of the room, will our hands clasp? Will the tears we have been saving inside burst like that prosecco we kept in the freezer so long it broke the bottle in half?
When will she walk in the room? It’s been over a year.
And now, you are gone.
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