Trojan Poetry 68: Morgan Parker and June Jordan

Poem
by Morgan Parker
October 16, 2012   (Painted Bride Quarterly)

I know it takes seven years for our cells to change
so I started last Thursday the train
was pregnant with stillness and groceries so
do you know what I thought? I wondered
and then I thought I would be sick
with the sound of your feet against hardwood
coming to sweep up twisted spine
with that thing you always say and the way you always
say it you say you’ll get it right next time
thinking it’s my fault so I read some June Jordan
poems caught you hiding in the margins begging
to be swallowed got off two stops early nauseous
later that night I’m so anxious I knit
two rows of a scarf it’s so ugly I fall asleep
 

To Be Continued:
by June Jordan

The partial mastectomy took a long time to execute
And left a huge raggedy scar
Healing from that partial mastectomy took even longer
And devolved into a psychological chasm 2 times the depth
And breadth of the physical scar from the mastectomy that was raggedy
And huge
Metastatic reactivation of the breast cancer requiring partial mastectomy
That left a huge raggedy scar in the first place now pounds
To pieces
A wound head-set fifty times more implacable and more intractable
Than the psychological chasm produced by the healing process
That was twice as enormously damaging as the surgery
Which left a huge raggedy scar

And so I go
on