Iora Dawes, Medical Social Worker
Nothing much has changed:
dawn arrives at the specified time,
the cat leaps at a butterfly and misses,
a fox ambles down the middle of the road,
except... everything has changed:
I sit in a room with no view
where thousands have sat before,
heavy with the wait of days
and nights of not knowing,
hearing the surgeon explain histology
that brooks no nuance,
that shall have dominion
in a voice tempered with a kind of love
for another human being;
watching his face, imagining the toll
of giving bad news, year after year
and when done, thanking,
not for the news
but for the manner of the giving.
Notes
I wrote this poem after having a cancer diagnosis.
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