Dire Cure Poem Rhyme Scheme

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quot First do no harm quot the Hippocratic	A
Oath begins but before she might enjoy	B
such balm the docs had to harm her tumor	C
It was large rare and so anomalous	D
in its behavior that at first they mis	E
diagnosed it quot Your wife will die of it	F
within a year quot But in ten days or so	G
I sat beside her bed with hot and sour	C
soup and heard an intern congratulate	H
her on her new diagnosis a children's	I
cancer doesn't that possessive break	J
your heart had possessed her I couldn't stop	K
personifying it Devious dour	C
it had a clouded heart like Iago's	I
It loved disguise It was a garrison	L
in a captured city a bad horror film	M
The Blob a stowaway an inside job	N
If I could make it be like something else	I
I wouldn't have to think of it as what	O
in fact it was part of my lovely wife	P
Next then chemotherapy Her hair fell	Q
out in tufts her color dulled she sat laced	R
to bags of poison she endured somewhat	O
better than her cancer cells could though not	S
by much And indeed the cancer cells waned	T
more slowly than the chemical quot cocktails quot	T
one the bright color of Campari as the chemo	G
nurses called them dripped into her There were	C
three hundred days of this a week inside	T
the hospital and two weeks out the fierce	I
elixirs percolating all the while	U
She did five weeks of radiation too	T
Monday to Friday like a stupid job	N
She wouldn't eat the food the hospital	V
wheeled in quot Pureed fish quot and quot minced fish quot were worth	W
I thought a sharp surge of food snobbery	X
but she'd grown averse to it all the nurses'	I
crepe soles' muffled squeaks along the hall	Y
the filtered air the smothered urge to read	T
the fear the perky visitors flowers	I
she'd not been sent when she was well the room	Z
mate what do quot semiprivate quot and quot extra	A2
virgin quot have in common who died the nights	I
she wept and sweated faster than the tubes	I
could moisten her with lurid poison	L
One chemotherapy veteran six	I
years in remission chanced on her former	C
chemo nurse at a bus stop and threw up	B2
My wife's tumor has not come back	C2
I like to think of it in Tumor Hell	Q
strapped to a dray flat as a deflated	T
football bleak and nubbled like a poorly	X
ironed truffle There's one tense in Tumor Hell	Q
forever or what we call the present	T
For that long the flaccid tumor marinates	I
in lurid toxins Tumor Hell Clinic	A
is it turns out a teaching hospital	V
Every century or so the way	D2
we'd measure it a chief doc brings a pack	C2
of students round They run some simple tests	I
surge current through the tumor batter it	T
with mallets push a wood plane across its	I
pebbled hide and watch a scurf of tumor	C
pelt kink loose from it impale it strafe it	T
with lye and napalm There might be nothing	E2
left in there but a still space surrounded	T
by a carapace quot This one is nearly	X
dead quot the chief doc says quot What's the cure for that quot	T
The students know quot Kill it slower of course quot	T
They sprinkle it with rock salt and move on	F2
Here on the aging earth the tumor's gone	G2
My wife is hale though wary and why not	T
Once you've had cancer you don't get headaches	I
anymore you get brain tumors at least	T
until the aspirin kicks in Her hair's back	C2
her weight her appetite quot And what about you quot	T
friends ask me First the fear felt like sudden	L
weightlessness I couldn't steer and couldn't stay	T
I couldn't concentrate surely my spit would	T
dry before I could slather a stamp	H2
I made a list of things to do next day	T
before I went to bed slept like a cork	I2
woke to no more memory of last night's	I
list than smoke has of fire made a new list	T
began to do the things on it wept paced	T
berated myself drove to the hospital	V
and brought my wife food from the takeout joints	I
that ring a hospital as surely as	I
brothels surround a gold strike I drove home	J2
rancid with anger at her luck and mine	K2
anger that filled me the same way nature	C
hates a vacuum quot This must be hell for you quot	T
some said Hell's not other people Sartre	A2
was wrong about that too L'enfer c'est moi	L2
I've not got the ego for it There'd be	X
no hell if Dante hadn't built a model	V
of his rage so well and he contrived to	T
get exiled from it for it was Florence	I
Why would I live in hell I love New York	I2
Some even said the tumor and fierce cure	M2
were harder on the care giver yes they	T
said quot care giver quot than on the quot sick person quot	T
They were wrong who said those things Of course	I
I hated it but some of quot it quot was me	X
the self pity I allowed myself	N2
the brave poses I struck The rest was dire	O2
threat my wife met with moral stubbornness	I
terror rude jokes nausea you name it	T
No let her think of its name and never	C
say it as if it were the name of God	T
	-
	-
Anonymous submission	L

William Matthews

Dire Cure Poem Rhyme Scheme and Analysis

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