Just About Her.... Poem by RIC BASTASA

She is beautiful
i guess cancer is beautiful
she must perhaps
accept this idea that cancer is
beautiful for the soul
i have never seen her so frail

her fragility is so feminine
and so is pain
a woman

pain is as fragile as
a center piece
on the table, a tea cup perhaps
which no one wants to break
to hear that sound of
pain

i do not know when to stop
to tell that pain must be beautiful
and that the soul is becoming more
beautiful in that pain

dying is in the curl of the hair
fragile on the head
which i also wish to caress
like the way mom once caressed mine

they do not talk that much
they feel

one smiles trying to say that everything is alright
the other looks to the ceiling

and the center piece of God's attention
the mom
is waiting

do not ask what she is waiting for