She used to write great poetry
before the illness slipped out
of the pillow straight into her head.
Her final verse enveloped by
glioblastoma multiforme
involving the basal ganglia
and left mesial temporal lobe.
It came at night, she claims.
Like an uninvited guest dressed
in needles, living, eating, but never
sleeping or allowing host a thought;
constantly trying to sell
a death more comfortable
than here and now,
more affordable
than when and if.
Her exorcism by pen was cut
short by stereotactic surgery
for maximal debulking. Residual
areas of abnormal enhancement
on post-operative MRI were treated
with gamma knife radiosurgery.
All the words she wrote while her body
brimmed with invasion
dry like buffalo skins on country fences;
they’re remnants of extinct thoughts creating
a myriad of madness nested
by carrion buzzards and lawyers:
Lidocaine and prilocaine
and the heaving moon -
psilocybe tinkers with
cottage bees
and ibogaine
drives moths further south.
The dry western grass
sertraline and the heaving
moon - diuloxatine
jars and cricket cranes
and venlafexine
brings the cackle
of banjo rains.
Third Place (tied)
Hart House Poetry Contest