Cancer
I want heroes for patients.
I want their families brave and wise and kind.
I want my patients to exclaim
How much better to exclaim
How much better they feel
Since taking my pills
And following my doctorly wisdom.
I want the old women that come to my clinic
To remind me how handsome I am,
How they can’t believe I am still not married.
And when my patients must die,
I want them to die complete.
No regrets, no languishing over the dying light.
I don’t want to have to think
About Mr. Thompson’s metastatic cancer
To the brain, the resigned bitterness
Etched on his too young face,
The desperate sound in his voice,
And his fiancee lying curled in a ball, upon his bed,
Unable to speak, unable to breathe.