I Am

I am the tumor ignored
on edge of whispered denial
startling when you feel me
pulling at your hidden nipple

I am the tumor remembered
cut from your dimpled breast
breast chiseled from your bone
haunting your daylight and night
like a white cat slipping
through a cage of ribs

Dialogue Between Body and Tumor

Body: Why fuck with me? I feel healthy, hungry, and sexy.
Tumor: Because I want you to savor the moment.
Body: But you intruded. You've no love for me.
Tumor: Wrong. I'm the agent of life.
Body: Agent of death.
Tumor: I tell you to stay in the present. That's all we can know.
Body: I didn't ask for your advice.
Tumor: You never would. If I had not creeped in, you'd take life unnoticed.
Body: Now I'm a big ear, listening for ...
Tumor: Forget the future.
Body: What future?

The tumor disappears in white ash.

Chella Courington is a writer and teacher whose poetry and fiction appear in numerous anthologies and journals including Lavender Review and The Los Angeles Review. Kirkus Review calls her recent novel, Janet Hall (All Things That Matter Press, 9/24), “a deeply moving family tale written in a smoothly poetic style.”