Metastasis: Wine Wednesday

Charlotte Oleson / V Mag at UVA 

After Claudia Emerson, For Lydia

on the phone we talk about the Cancer, a glass of wine sweating beside me, and I finally admit I do not know the future. research does not create distance like I think it will, filled with jargon I cannot translate into “you will get better.” another nosebleed, infection, surgery, again, and again, and I can’t help but try to avoid the prognoses. another Cancer comfortable with Death. the studies whisper statistics in my ear when I am carrying the weight of you on one arm. you stay the weekend and I walk behind you when we climb a flight of stairs. you are grateful but really this means that I am afraid. I am sorry I always make this about me, on my floor with the wine, preparing myself for any possibility, otherwise known as the inevitable. I collect all the moments you are Alive like flowers pressed between pages; these too fade paler as time dries them brittle. but last week, the leaves burned like blood in the sunset and I thought their dying looked beautiful. this means that I am selfish. that I am sorry. that I will never understand.