They told me there is cancer growing

deep in my father; they say it grows too

slowly to be of much concern.

 

He says the Parkinson’s will kill him

long before the cancer spreads

and when he laughs, I can’t respond

 

because this is my father;

he carried newly-cut trees

on one shoulder with me on the other,

summer days filled with the hum of bees,

watching his axe fly up and down,

sitting on his lap while he read to us and his

off-key voice singing us to sleep.

 

I want to beg them to take the cancer out,

to take the gene that makes him ill (his brother died,

his only brother left also has Parkinsons)

and isn’t it hereditary, Daddy?

 

I feel his cancer growing in my bones,

as I feel a tremor coming on – I remember

the grandmother in the window, rocking in her chair.

 

My brother told me she was the witch waiting

to eat me but we didn't know about the

real wolf at our door - this illness

borne along those little strands,

passed down to us so gently.