Day 444

She was waiting for the border to open
so she could leave to get treatment.
She knew her cancer was spreading,
didn’t want to tell her children, didn’t want
to tell anyone.  There was enough
for them to worry about
without worrying about the mass
that was growing in her breast.  Every day
she checked it.  Every day her hand
found its way in the dark
to the secret place it was growing.
It was firm, unmoving.  It was
claiming more space.  She thought of it
as the Occupation:  its dark
invasiveness, its inexorable advancement.
She was waiting for the border to open
so someone could remove it, give her
medicine against its onslaught,
strafe it at its roots the way bombs
had uprooted the trees of her childhood.
She was waiting, though she doubted
the border would open in time; and this
she told no one, only silently spoke at night
to the tumor, conspired with it
to keep hiding itself, whispered
they would remain at war with each other, 
a war she wasn’t willing to give up.