CW: discussions of cancer
The oncologist shows us
the tumors on the screen:
two fuzzy white circles
stacked like a headless
snowman. He explains
how he knew exactly
where to look: cancer cells
from the testes always travel
back up the same path
the testes descended
before birth. This detail feels
so perfect, so neatly ordered,
that if this were a textbook
and not my loved one’s body,
if this were not the news
we dreaded, the starting line
for chemo, I could marvel
at the miracle of this fact.
the tumors on the screen:
two fuzzy white circles
stacked like a headless
snowman. He explains
how he knew exactly
where to look: cancer cells
from the testes always travel
back up the same path
the testes descended
before birth. This detail feels
so perfect, so neatly ordered,
that if this were a textbook
and not my loved one’s body,
if this were not the news
we dreaded, the starting line
for chemo, I could marvel
at the miracle of this fact.
Katie Manning is the founding editor-in-chief of Whale Road Review and a professor of writing at Point Loma Nazarene University in San Diego. Her book Tasty Other won the 2016 Main Street Rag Poetry Book Award, and her fifth chapbook, 28,065 Nights, is newly available from River Glass Books. katiemanningpoet.com, Twitter: @iamkatmann, Instagram: @katiemanningpoet, Facebook: facebook.com/katiemanningpoet.