In the dark, I pass a Schwarzwald. Pine trees drip and drool in the obsidian pre-dawn. The thick black copse is cold and damp like a grave and thin frozen firs scrape the dirty oily sky without giving shelter. No lingering for me. I feel unease and the apprehension that Hansel and Gretel should have had. Dank, inky winter forests drive ice worms into my soul. This dense night wood makes a sunless and moonless and skyless cave of phantoms, an eternal night with anxious chill. Does it bring a …

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 …

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