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Cancer My mother was first, a golf ball lump blocking her throat. The doctors claimed it was allergy, the flu until my brother screamed "She can't breathe," and then they found it, ambulanced her at midnight to Mass General where a surgeon slit a grotesque smile from ear to ear to open her throat, remove the tumor lymph nodes her voice. Ten years later I drive my father on his daily journey for six weeks to the clinic where they dose his prostate with radiation. The distant son, I change my schedule book flights rush myself, my prayers, beg God to let them live so I can hate them some more, hate myself, the person I've become running so hard from them that I run smack into their own skins. Richard Krawiec has published 2 novels, a story collection, 4 plays and a poetry chapbook Breakdown (Main Street Rag). His poems and stories have appeared in magazines such as Shenandoah, Sou'wester, Witness, Many Mountains Moving, and elsewhere. He has won fellowships from the NEA and the NC Arts Council. |
