This Winter, My Body is Killing Me

by Karen Friedland


Now, why’d you go all cancerous on me,
right ovary?

Then sprinkle cancer nodules
like fairy dust throughout the abdomen,
from rectum to diaphragm—

constellations of cancers,
some the size of a grain of sand—

ugly, evil little rosebuds
with yellow dots,
staring up at me
from the surgeon’s exploratory snapshots
as if to say “cheese!” and
“how little you knew!”

We’re trying to kill the bastards
with chemo now,
dragging me down low with it—

I lay in bed with the dogs
and cat all day,
a single neuron
pinging in my brain.

Soon enough, more trauma—
massive surgery,
removing cancers,
lady parts, everything.

And in the spring,
like the world outside my window,
like Jesus Christ himself—

a hopeful resurrection
of what’s left of me.


* * * * *

Once a grant writer by trade, Karen Friedland had poetry published in the Lily Poetry Review, Nixes Mate Review, One Art, and others. She has twice been nominated for a Pushcart Prize. Her books are Places That Are Gone and Tales from the Teacup Palace. Karen lived in Boston with her husband, two dogs and a cat. She was diagnosed with ovarian cancer in November 2021, two days before her 58th birthday, and died on April 14, 2024.