I.
My heart's beat
echoed with a deep
resounding ache,
the ache of a stomach
in want of food.
I waited for the word
benign
to poke its soft ears
from between my doctor's lips.

II.
My ultrasound, inconclusive:
a lighthouse signaling from across the sea
snuffed
before I hit shore.

III.
I once watched a woman's body
taken by cancer.
It began, rooted in her lower back.
And then, one spring, it stretched up her spine,
the stem of a black rose,
unfolding each stained petal in the swirl of her brain.

IV.
The biopsy results came in.
I bought myself crisp daffodils
and daises, with their petals bright and curved as the moon.
I put them out on my windowsill,
strong and tall on their stems,
and bees came to dance in their cups
with the fierceness of children,
their arms out like windmills,
beckoning forth summer.