As the doctor exits the exam room she reaches for my hand. I pull her entire body onto my lap as she continues to stare at the Gastrointestinal Diagram like it’s a map of the stars, searching for constellations, seeing only organs, glands and tissues. “Do I need my liver to live?” I stare at her, feel her sit bones press into my quivering quads, her hands interlocking around my shoulders like she’s a child asking if she has to get the flu shot. “Let’s try to keep it,” I offer. I hold her against me, smell the skin between her clavicle and neck, watch a vein pulse. “Everything is going to be okay,” I persist, but what I want to say is: No matter what, it’s an honor to take this ride with you.
Sarah Cooper hails from Clemson, South Carolina where she spends her time teaching and writing. She has recent publications in Shot Glass Journal and Night Owl. Her passion is self-improvement and when she’s not writing she’s working out her body as an owner and operator of a local CrossFit box.
Categories: Poetry
Tags: e-zine, ezine, family, health, hyperbole, illness, Liver Lesions and My Mother, longing, Lymph Nodes, melancholy, melancholy hyperbole, mother, new, poem, poet, poetry, poets, Sarah Cooper, submit, writing
