Not Knowing

By: Eric Hagen

"My father-in-law died last night, but no one cares if you lost someone. It's deadlines, deadlines,
deadlines. I need to meet these deadlines, go to New York to be at his funeral and be back here
to keep my appointments by Monday. Everybody wants something."

———

The world doesn't stop; the deadlines
still need to be met.
So you push onward, dragging
behind you the anchors of chemo treatments, surgeries and endless
doctor appointments. You pull with you: lost sleep and bruised jaws
from nights spent clenching teeth. You wake up sore and hurt,
but the requirements on your time don’t stop.

You still have meetings and planning,
kids’ after-school games and dinner to make,
you lift the chains one at a time, pulling copies of homework
up to explain (again) the lessons, pulling covers up
to a chin, telling them not to worry, that words like “cancer”
take less effort to say than “sweet dreams” and like nightmares
it will all be distant memory soon.

You push the edges of your lips
into dry smiles and thank the concerned,
knowing they are searching for some way to help
not knowing what to do, you knowing you need their help
not knowing how to take it, unwilling to admit that in the hours
you get up and sit at the edge of your mattress, you bow your head
into your hands and wonder when the dawn will come.