How to Tour the Brain
Conceived like
a star when we were twelve,
…….the first
tumor nestled, benign, in her skull like
a womb.
It pulsed through sixth grade band,
…….Natasha
blowing hard into the French horn,
…my flute a
long finger scratching air.
Middle school afternoons,
we did what little
…….homework
we had on the orange hibiscus couch
in the old conch house her mother rented.
…….The living
room walls nicotine-stained,
…one tiny fan
swinging hot drafts.
Every boyfriend her mother
had
…….bagged cocaine
at the dinner table,
her mother always hippy-dancing,
…….Pink Floyd
dripping from the hi-fi.
The next year she left Natasha with her
father.
We are twenty-seven now.
Pain like a straight blade
…….sewn behind
her eyes, exposed the tumor.
They shaved her hair, gave her a shooter
of chalky ink,
…….and during
the long sleep of surgery,
burrowed into her with the minuscule.
A year in remission.
…….We talked
long distance today,
and after the usual six-month summations
…….of each
other’s lives, she told me the news.
The tumor kicking inside her again.
Her doctor is going to try
what he calls
…….a non-invasive
approach: stereotactic radiotherapy.
He’s going to aim a pencil-thin beam
…….of high-energy
particles at the place where the tumor
is living, and try to kill it there.
Even
if this works, its recurrence
…….might keep
her from ever having children.
She’s not sure if this is a bad thing.
…….She’s having
trouble finding a good man.
She hasn’t spoken to her mother in years.
Note: The title for this
poem was taken from a subtitle found on
The National Brain Tumor Foundation’s Web
site.
*Danielle
Sellers is originally from Key West, FL.
She has an MA from The Writing Seminars
at Johns Hopkins. She’s published in Touchstone,
The Sewanee Theological Review and Plainsongs.
She has poems forthcoming in Backwards City
Review and The Pinch. Most recently, she
was a semi-finalist for the 2006 Discovery/The
Nation prize. She’s currently a John and
Renée Grisham Poetry Fellow in the
MFA program at Ole Miss. She’s also an associate
poetry editor at The Yalobusha Review.
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