Samuel Tongue

Why did I go so long believing I owed the world my disappointment?

Why did I want to take the world by storm when I could have taken it by sunshine, by rosewater, by the cactus flowers on the side of the road where I broke down?

I'm not about to waste more time spinning stories about how much time I'm owed, but there is a man who is usually here who isn't today.

I don't know if he's still alive.

I just know his wife was made of so much hope, she looked like a firework above his chair.

Will the afterlife be harder if I remember the people I love, or forget them?

Either way, please let me remember.

Obviously, when we're approaching poems that deal with or try to deal with cancer and disease in this way, we are covering a lot of ground that has been covered before.

There are many people now, and obviously we're living longer with more and more illnesses.

So writing about cancer and somebody's experience of living with

and then dying from cancer is well trodden ground in a sense.

But each individual poet who's writing along these lines and across this ground brings their own perspective and brings their own heart to the endeavor.

When we were discussing this in the group, we were struck by the title first off.

It sets us straight into the scene.

There's no dilly-dally.

The title, In the Chemo Room.

I wear mittens made of ice so I don't lose my fingernails, but I took a risk today to write this down.

Gives you all the information you need.

We're immediately there.

We're in the chemo room.