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        Seer of the Red Moon


  David made me a painting one year.
  He stayed up all night
  on Speed and
  started with a blank
  canvas.
  He filled in all the places
  that weren't
  holy with black inks
  to form a robed man lifting a staff.

  He uncovered a blood-red moon
  the shape of a giant
fingernail sliver )
  at the top of the page.

        I can just see him
        huddled over his desk
        the attic room's walls
        sloping around his head,
        bare bulb strung
        at the place where the walls meet.
        He is sloshing down coffee and
        has been caught in a chanting frenzy.

  At dawn,
  he declared the painting Holy,
  and he named it
  Seer of the Red Moon.
  He hid notes all over
  the house, clues
  to its discovery.
  Then he went to bed.

  It has hung near me
  for protection
  when the walls begin
  to melt and the
  top of my head curls off.

  I say,
  "Anything that
  works, man,
  anything that works."
 

published 1992   ©2000 lisbeth west


 
 

                                ______________________

   
But I Knew It Couldn't Be Cancer
but i knew
it couldn't be cancer
things
have been going too right for me up until the test
and then,
the night before the surgery
Charlie had stayed the night with me
and chose that evening
to explain why
he couldn't be
my lover
any more

You see, it can't be cancer
I already have enough to mourn
he hadn't realized the slashing effects
and I told him
that I thought it was for the best, too

That night
cuddling in each other's arms
trying desperately to be

Friends "but we're so good together" he said
so we made love again
as if the words were his only defenses against
the possibility of my mortality—
I told him then, "you know

It can't be cancer
there are so many smiles left to share"
and the Word
cut through him, as the word Friend had done to me
He turned his back to me, and huddled
against the wall
afraid to see
the pain
afraid to
touch
the
breast

He won't be there
when they slice me open
and pull out the damned cancer
he won't be there
when they give me the schedule
of the treatments and ask me to bring a friend
so I don't drive home myself
He Won't Be There
when I scream into the night
begging for another chance
another warm kiss
another soft caress on the place where
My Breast had been  

published 1990   ©2000 lisbeth west
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