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.