Day after day, the fecund, mis-shaped cells
doubled and re-doubled inside her, infused
her blood's unguarded channels and spawned their rank
tumors, unmaking each tissue-woven host —
her left lung first, then her brain, then her spine and bones,
brute Vandals at the marrow. For weeks, or months
(the doctors know so little) , she felt nothing,
until that morning in August, a special class

for teachers, when her hand refused to move
or hold her pen, and curled limp against her paper,
a small, stunned thing. It seemed, she said, so strange,
and yet familiar, too, like that scene from a thousand
old westerns: the dozing scout startled to a fury
of dust, the first, faint sounds of horses approaching.