Cathy Coley

Untangle

Andrew built a wooden frame for privacy.

I planted morning glory seeds and sunflower seeds

to fill the space between us and neighbors.

It’s past Midsomer. The sunflowers stand happy sentinels,

as delicate vines begin to wind and climb to strangle them, unaware.

I spent a good part of the morning unwinding the precious threads

from the sunflower stalks they chose

to entangle around instead of the posts of the frame.

I wound the long vines around the wood frame.

The morning glories are lovely and few,

and too delicate for human touch

as they furl in their open selves toward noon.

It’s too hot in the midday humid sun

for me to try to untangle, and I have so much more

Useful things to do.

The precious vines I unwind have me

metaphoring to my cancer,

and how the surgeon, oncologist, pathologist

are trying to untangle

any remaining invisible cells

from my lymph nodes.

The two that held cancer

beyond the hard tumor in my breast,

my surgeon calls sentinel nodes,

gatekeepers.

My eldest son laughs

and compares the nodes

to a videogame sacrifice.

The gatekeepers are sacrificed

so the rest of the troops

can prepare for a defensive attack.

I'm trying to untangle all the medical

and financial information in a system

that commodifies my life as a sacrifice,

if we can’t pay

for the surgeries to cut the tumor and nodes out;

for the chemotherapy to air raid bomb

any infiltrating cancer cells out;

for the radiation after chemo,

just in case they find a single holdout in a hidden bunker

after all that residual damage is done.

I try to untangle how my daughters’

education won’t be sacrificed during this pandemic.

She can’t attend school or ride a bus,

a sacrificial lamb to a slaughter.

Since the governor can’t decide yet,

I decided for my child, for myself,

and family health.

Options are available beyond a classroom

full of covid and a myriad other disease vectors.

I untangled the pandemic from my cancer,

and the chemotherapy

that will wipe out my immune system,

like America bombs the Middle East.

The same philosophy behind both:

If we wipe it all out, maybe we’ll

get the bad guys: ISIS, cancer.

But how do I untangle the idea of destroying

what is supposed to protect me

on the off-chance a few cancer cells

may still float around in

undetermined corners of my body?

But morning glories aren’t cancer.

And sunflowers aren’t protecting us

from anymore than maybe a curious glance

or a stray hello.

The delicate lacy vines are precious

and carry beauty that changes

with the sun to protect itself

as it clings on for dear life.

I protect them both, with care,

the bowing strong, tall sunflowers,

and their delicate and dangerous

neighbor morning glories.

First draft 7/14/20