Literature
stage three
brush off the accident.
you breaking
a mirror
screamed
bad luck.
(religion
and reason
pushed those
thoughts back.)
forget
your niece
saw her teeth
falling
in nightmares.
what could it
mean anyway?
(why associate
teeth with
negativity?)
look past
the lump
in your left breast.
cancer doesn't run
in the family,
and god won't let it.
eat, sleep, get up,
delay the checkup:
(the lump is a morsel,
a mole,
a mothball.)
six months later
the mothball
grew the size
of a golf ball
and turns out
to be
invasive
ductal carcinoma,
(not the benign cyst
you have hoped
to excise.)
you sigh,
you are in a trance.
is it the mirror?
the teeth's falli