Ally Malinenko- Three Poems

Things You Shouldn’t Say

Can I ask you a question,

she says,

drying her own eyes

after crying about her husband,

Of course, I say.

Did you think that if you had children

you would have never gotten cancer?

And I open and close my mouth like

a guppy

nowhere near water.

I Cried at Radiation Today

I cried at radiation today.

I’m not even sure why.

It wasn’t because the technician

pulled the strings on my gown

while I was still putting down my bag

and the whole thing slid off,

and I stood there topless,

though that would be a good reason, I think.

It wasn’t that she told me I couldn’t shave

my armpits anymore.

Or wear deodorant.

Or use soap in the shower.

It wasn’t that I had to get used to the smell.

It wasn’t even the old folks,

afterwards,

as I was in the bathroom changing,

who talked about the girl who is going to die

on November 1^st

rather than fight pointlessness.

It wasn’t my dark nipple, stained from radiation.

It wasn’t my mother’s upcoming hospitalization

or the fact that my own cancer

is still a secret six months out.

Maybe it was the cold hand of the past

wrapped around my waist

telling me

that it will never be finished with me.

All the same I cried at radiation

today

hard and fast,

holding onto the sink

as if it was the only thing

left that could stop me from spinning

right off this planet.

You Never Know

The old man shuffled into the room,

and I say,

How are you?

which is what you should say

when old men shuffle into the room

and he smiles,

all mischief

and cigar smoke

and says,

Still alive

and I say

Me too.

And he throws back his head and laughs

But, he tells me,

his accent a heavy stone on his tongue,

he says, the chance of you being alive

is much greater than the chance of me being alive.

His fingertips thump his chest.

And I stop and think

about the word diagnosis

and the word prognosis

and how they dance together

like two greek myths

How this summer you were Orpheus

and I was Eurydice

and how you came all

the way to hell to find me.

Hades and Persephone.

I was Helen and you were Troy

and our love started this cancer war

But the old man is still wagging his eyebrows

and asking me,

right? right?

The chance of you being alive is much greater, he says again.

So I lean in,

and as flirty as possible

I say

You never know.

And his lips form on Oh

and he howls like a laughing

wolf straight into the night.