Embedding the Cancer Port

It's called a port, a harbor, haven, home,

a city on the coast of my chest opened

for a passage into my heart—which we say

is where emotions live—and it's embedded,

slipped into a shallow nest of flesh, a bump,

a lump under the skin on the right so

the narrow street can reach the marketplace

of the aorta, receptive to any

incoming ship, needle, boat, barge, unloading

its spices, crates of dates, barrels of poisons,

Etoposide phosphate, amethyst, amaranth,

Cisplatin, amphorae of wine and olives.

I carry it secretly under my skin

because it is easier. I carry

everything under my skin, so lightly

I barely notice, watching from the ramparts

the dangerous rocky anchorage below

where goods and evils, bundled together

and tied, arrive, waiting to be unloaded

and poured out into a welcoming country.

Copyright Credit:

Poem copyright ©2015 by Robert W. King, “Embedding the Cancer Port,” from Nimrod International Journal, (58.2, 2015). Poem reprinted by permission of Robert W. King and the publisher.