Letter to Cancer
JONATHAN B. AIBEL
[pdf]
i. m. Lucie Brock-Broido (1956 - 2018)
Dear Stupid Cells,
who themselves, wild in their passion,
leave their ordered places.
Did I not love you as myself?
No body wants this careen
to the cliff's very lip, days
puking up poison. Yet you never
let go this embrace.
Endorse the old order,
a dominion of peace,
maverick proud, you,
too confident to listen.
Fucking stupid flesh,
submit to reason, return
to your bed, leave perennials
alone, you weeds without grace
to bloom prettily. You will be the death.
JONATHAN B. AIBEL is a recovering software engineer who lives in Concord, MA, homelands of the Nipmuc. His poems have been published, or will soon appear, in Chautauqua, American Journal of Poetry, Lily Poetry Review, Ocean State Review, Pangyrus, and elsewhere.