the tortoise and

the hair….

ps - in case you forgot what her head used to look like,
or in case it does come back in gray and curly - like we’ve been
told that it might, here’s the yummy black mane in all its glory:

cliche with cachet

leanne keeps saying that she’ll wake up
one of these days and all of this will be untrue,
that she’ll wake up and she’ll still be pregnant,
the snow will still be piled up on the grass outside
our house, her hair will be long and black and straight,
the furnace is on and it’s january again.
from everyone i’ve talked [...]

from what i hear

leanne’s grandma, rena, sits alone in the corner
of atrium village’s atrium lobby, around her are
probably old folks in various stages
of sleep and conversation - some talking to people
who are sleeping, others talking in their sleep.
but she is awake and just reading.
the sound of metal walkers scraping
along the floor. a piano sits there.
no one ever plays [...]

helmet love

Ok, here are some initial pix from the ride around lake tahoe.
Thanks to all of you, many of you who came from this weird blog thing,
who donated on behalf of Leanne so that I could ride.
The 5 riders who rode in honor of Leanne raised $35,000.
Sum total for that one day, $8.5 million.
The goal of [...]

chemo works

it does.
it truly does.
today leanne goes back to work
for the first time since january.
yes, she’ll be bald and yes, she’ll be tired,
but she’ll drive the same driver
and park in the same parking lot
and walk through those same doors
she’s been walking through the past six months
and, like that, go from patient to provider.
maybe you didn’t know [...]

there’s something i forgot to say

yesterday, during the procedure,
they couldn’t get leanne numb.
it was a silly little thing, just a slice
through her chest and the removal
of the device that never worked anyway.
she made me put headphones on her
because she couldn’t stand to hear the sound
of them cutting her skin, the snipping and such.
and i saw them go through two full [...]

port authority

they put your chemo port in,
they take your chemo port out,
they put your chemo in,
then they pump venom into it for six months…
that’s what it’s all about.
—-
lee got her port out today.

i sat in a chair next to her and held her hand.
you have no idea how much i wish i could write that
it was [...]

in the dream i don’t have

in the dream i don’t have, i am awakened by leanne.
she shakes my shoulder with her hand
and tells me it’s time to go.
i get up and scramble together some clothes in a duffel,
splash water on my face, slip socks from the floor
on over my feet.
in the dream i don’t have, i can see the street [...]

Inspiration Point

On the ride yesterday, which, yes, I did finish,
there’s a part of the route around Lake Tahoe where the road crests
above Emerald Bay.
It’s called, aptly, Inspiration Point.
It offers up views of the entire lake,
the eternally snowed peaks of the Sierras
down to the clear verdant water, the smooth rocks
beneath the waters directly below the cliff.
I was [...]