Untitled poem

One of my old professors said, if you don't know a poem's title, it's not a poem yet. Maybe she was right. But today is my dad's birthday, the first without him. And my cancer is back. And that's a lot to carry. This the only way I can write about it today, tho.

today is your father's first birthday 

on a different planet or in a different form. 

you wonder will he visit.

today your cancer has returned exactly 

the same as before. no one can tell 

where yet or if this will be its last call.

you are writing in the second person

to hold these things at a distance, obviously.

this is what writing school taught you.  

obviously you miss your father even if

it is less than you thought. selfish girl, 

missing your own life the most. 

the one where you woke up each day

without first measuring the poison.

no one gets through life without 

side effects anyway. especially now. 

at one end of Orkney, sheep grace

the sea banks, grazing seaweed 

instead of grass. you don't know why 

you mention this now except to say, 

i lived another way once. 

i marvelled at them from the road.

now the dandelion seeds of cancer

are waiting in far reaches of your body.

they mean to bloom instead of sleep. 

you are looking in the meantime for marvels. 

looking for signs of your father in the birds 

on the grass. finding mostly twigs there, 

seeds, an occasional reaching bud, 

because it is April after all.