Cancer
    
   by Phillip Peters

They wear Easter bonnets of promise,
bald heads shaved smooth
by poisons trying to save them.
They force smiles
unlike those when they had hair,
trying to forget the pain.
Queasy stomachs in revolt
cramp their style,
but can’t touch their hearts,
stronger than the cellular gravity that
would pull them down,
blend them with the earth.
It’s not the dying, but something else.
Tears rain down from loved-ones,
nurture the struggle for survival
on the edge of an open grave.
Some fly across the heavens,
shooting stars firing 
life back into a limp rag.
A body ravaged by a
poor growth management system,
becomes a vessel to be salvaged 
for the voyage back to living
as the sea gives up the dead.
And some simply slide into the grave,
praying for salvation, divine intervention.