Chasing Rabbits
Your first treatment
you mercifully sleep through.
Your first chemo and
you sleep and sleep and sleep
with your IV’ed hand propped on a pillow
cross-stitched with magenta hibiscus blossoms.
I’m glad you are oblivious
to the gory war stories recounted by
your fellow infusionees.
Your gentle hand twitching, lip wiggling,
and ankle rustling show me that
in your dreams, you’re chasing rabbits–
You and Queenie, your beloved beagle,
in a sun-drenched field of
cricket cacophony and grasshopper explosions.
I’m so relieved
that that’s where you are
Instead of here
in this
IV-beeping,
Latex-snapping,
Fluorescent-blaring
infusion room.