May 6, 2022
0 woman, clothed in the sun
with the moon at your feet
crown of twelve stars on your head pink ribbon at your breast
queen of hope
queen of healing
queen of peace
pray for us
May 6, 2022
How powerfully the Spirit worked in you
dear mother
for I could not have known anything was wrong
May 6, 2022
Afterwards, there are no more
nurses in the room with the doctor,
and you realize there’s been
an official decision about the absence
of desire. A board somewhere sat
and determined it: male doctors
may examine the remaining breast
unaccompanied after mastectomy [...]
May 6, 2022
Like Sylvia’s moon, she was turning wild and bald,
she looked for light beyond silhouetted trees
but the trees of the mind were blacker, and they called.
Caught in a tunnel of fear she slowly crawled
into the darkest corners of disease -
like Sylvia’s moon she was turning wild and bald. [...]
May 6, 2022
I could not say
I felt like a walking miracle
as we travelled south
on the first day of spring.
Snow on the Burren
fleshed out skeletal stones,
stopped gaps in the walls
so the air could not pass
and the valley sank deeper
into smothered soundlessness. [...]
May 6, 2022
Despite her stature
she always saw herself as an Amazon
but baulked at the price of amputation
just to draw back the bowstring faster. [...]