She taught me dignity
from 
JoeUser Forums
JoeUser Forums
they told you to have the operation
it had to be total--down to the bone,
I listened to you cry that night, in your
room with the light from the porch painting
your heaving portrait in shadows,
after they cut your breast off and left you
disfigured by a scar that ran diagonally from
your sternum to your ribs a pregnant snake
hiding the birth of coming nightmares and
endless depression,
I watched you as you sat in the dusty old
pillow chair surrounded by cheap furniture
that had sat in that living room for my whole
life,
coughing you listened politely to the volunteer cancer society representative
as she suggested that you take a trip, a long cruise to the Caribbean or
perhaps Mazatlan in Mexico,
she seemed oblivious to the cockroaches moving
silently through the carpet or the rat droppings
behind the refrigerator or the ashtray overflowing
perhaps the wrecked Ford parked out front was
a common sight in her neighborhood or because
she had her tit cut off too made her blind to ground-in misery, but
I learned dignity from you when she left--alive and breathing.
just a silent tear for the sad rich lady walking out your door.
J. Masuda (c) 2006
it had to be total--down to the bone,
I listened to you cry that night, in your
room with the light from the porch painting
your heaving portrait in shadows,
after they cut your breast off and left you
disfigured by a scar that ran diagonally from
your sternum to your ribs a pregnant snake
hiding the birth of coming nightmares and
endless depression,
I watched you as you sat in the dusty old
pillow chair surrounded by cheap furniture
that had sat in that living room for my whole
life,
coughing you listened politely to the volunteer cancer society representative
as she suggested that you take a trip, a long cruise to the Caribbean or
perhaps Mazatlan in Mexico,
she seemed oblivious to the cockroaches moving
silently through the carpet or the rat droppings
behind the refrigerator or the ashtray overflowing
perhaps the wrecked Ford parked out front was
a common sight in her neighborhood or because
she had her tit cut off too made her blind to ground-in misery, but
I learned dignity from you when she left--alive and breathing.
just a silent tear for the sad rich lady walking out your door.
J. Masuda (c) 2006