………..
The Wrong Place
…….
I don’t think we’re in the right place,
my son said,
looking up at the sign above the desk.
What’s oncology? he asked.
It was my turn to look up at Eli,
(my tall manboy with the baby face),
into those wondering hazel eyes.
My tongue curled around the word,
reluctant to release its awful power.
Big breath.
It means cancer, I said.
My husband came in from the parking lot
and we three trooped down a hall,
into a small room,
without enough space to breathe,
sat in hard plastic chairs,
and heard from an unsmiling doctor,
aggressive, unusual,
large tumor, sarcoma,
blood in the belly,
more detailed pathology,
bone marrow biopsy,
bone scan, body scan,
port-o-cath, clinical trials,
chemotherapy, radiation,
nausea, vomiting, losing hair,
treatment before Christmas,
no more school this year.
No school! Eli exclaimed,
as if that were the worst of the news.
But perhaps it was the only bit he could grasp
in the soup of this surreal conversation.
We sat and stared,
dry-eyed and numb,
nodded, signed, took appointment cards
into helpless hands,
and slowly rose.
Our legs somehow carried us
from the small room,
back down the hall
and out of that right and wrong place
into the gray afternoon.
This poem is from the book The Wrong Place by Tawn Parent (Finishing Line Press), and can be found at https://www.finishinglinepress.com/product/the-wrong-place-by-tawn-parent/
The Wrong Place attempts to answer the question: How does a mother cope when her worst nightmare comes true? This collection of poems and essays chronicles the author’s journey alongside her young son as he is diagnosed and treated for a rare cancer. Readers follow the family as they learn the vocabulary of cancer, develop a new way of parenting, and grieve the loss of their son’s innocence. The family navigates endless medical procedures and hospital stays while seeking to maintain a sense of themselves outside of “cancer world.” Throughout, the author relies on humor and hope to pull her through.
A native and resident of Indianapolis, Tawn Parent has been a professional writer and editor for 30 years. Her poetry and essays have appeared in Tipton Poetry Journal, Home Planet News Online, Anti-Heroin Chic, Last Stanza Poetry Journal, and Nzuri. She has worked for various business publications, and also served as proofreader for two books.
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