A brilliant scientific

researcher

reduced, in the face

of cancer, to platitudes

her mother used to say

back on the farm and

back in the day,

“Either way,

it’s going to be okay,”

 

as the researcher puffed

on one of a long,

long chain

of cigarettes and drained

one of a long, long chain

of Bud lites in her

university office

with molecules still

on her brain.

 

Then she stared into the documenting

camera held by the love that couldn’t

love in the researcher’s way,

 

raged at fate

 

and lashed out at her loves –back on

the farm from back in the day

— and pushed them away

with an obscenity

and a dismissive wave

 

of a spindly, frail, limply lifted

wrist of a really bitchy

broad with a Ph.D – young,

brilliant, bald-headed life

slipping away,

then one day

 

she just up and quit drinking

(for a while), got sober and

went back to work on the

drug that would save the day

and bring a prize her way

 

which she could dump into

her bucket and cross it off the list

but on and on and on –

the relentless pain

and eating away

in every way

just wouldn’t go away;

 

no home, no place to play,

no place to stay

no family from back in

the day

 

alone except for the one

behind the camera to whom

she couldn’t say

the words she needed

to say, “I want to love you

in every way.”

 

Then she simply held hands

with the brilliant, lovely,

young film-maker and

whispered, “I love you.

Please forgive me. Thank

you,” and slipped away.

 

Back on the farm, back in the day

her mother used to say,

“Either way,

it’s going to be okay.”