Remission
Wait: what was my first mission? And why
did it take five years to go from four-star
cancer—and malignant melanoma is an angry
cancer, the oncologist (okay, my oncologist) said
to my face, nothing to hide between us anymore
and her, pregnant with what became difficult
twins, jaundiced and leathery and failing to thrive.
But she got me started on immunotherapy
and the Gamma knife that saved my brain—yes,
my neurosurgeon—and the radiation that saved
my torso and the marijuana that saved the rest.
Because yes, that was my mission, to keep sucking
air, to gobble up life by the bucketful, to hell
with keeping a list, and love like a poem, without
meaning to at all.
Dennis Held continues to live (!) along Hangman Creek in Spokane, Washington, in the Vinegar Flats neighborhood. His essay, “What I’ll Miss,” was first published in Terrain.org and won a Pushcart Prize for 2022. He’d like to thank Verne Windham at KPBX, Spokane’s public radio affiliate, for his help recording this poem. Tune in Monday through Friday at KPBX, 91.1 at 9 a.m. PST (or any time at spokanepublicradio.org) to hear Poetry Moment, featuring a different poet each week reading their own work and poetry by others.
Read more poetry by Dennis Held in Terrain.org: two poems, two poems, Letter to America poem, three poems, three poems, and four poems.
