My Poems of Today!

        Radiation - The Boosts

The radiation machine is pushed against my side,

my arm up over my head.

I struggle now to visualize this more intense penetration,

which I am told is actually more shallow,

as healing energy.

I am sore.

I see what radiation can do.

This is not a play.

Jane suggests Tai Chi, changing the energy.

I lean now into that.

I counter its attack

with a movement of my own.

I block, shift, turn, change,

direct,

like with the horses

when we place

our body so they go around,

or with dogs where we deflect

their exuberance

with hips and shoulders.

I’ll work today with the energy

from the machine

like that.

I have tools.

I am biological.

I adapt.

Healing

A pause, and tears

want to fall.

Grief gathers

like Sunday parishioners at church.

I need this cleansing, this Baptismal call,

to bathe in my own healed waters,

to bless the moisture,

the font I feed

from the inside out.