Cut Flowers

                                   

My lump, frozen and shaved like a white truffle

was shared out among surgeons’ with tumour envy

who stood in line

bragging that one encapsulated prize

would lead to another,

plus a full page spread in Oncology Monthly.

I ached to take it home

watch it shrivel.

Tease it with warm forbidden flesh

Give it the hope of cut flowers

Make it bloody suffer

Instead, I chose chemo,

took myself home

watched myself shrivel

teased myself with warm forbidden flesh

gave myself the hope of cut flowers

made myself suffer

They came in pairs  

asked if I’d seen Alien

joked about corrosive blood.

They said my lump was the lump formalin known as...

and performed sterilised high fives.

I rolled up my sleeves.

I made an effigy out of Blu Tack

and lanced it with cocktail sticks, leaving out the cheese

as the merest glimpse of a magazine fridge

made me heave.

Fatigue arrived like spring ants,

taking scraps of me away.

swarming when the Chemo stopped

and blood ran sweet again.

I heard my lump now resides in some lab rat

with tweaked DNA.

the cut flowers have gone,

replaced by pseudo-silken blooms

that fools all but the wisest bees.