Poetry Magazines - The best collection of poetry magazines online - Simon Armitage

If I should find a lump in my left breast
while you are sporting in the Middle West
with our two boys and sundry other guys,
would I get on the phone, would it be wise
to show the nakedness of my raw fear?
Not that being ill while you’re not here
is something qualitatively new, but just
that this attack is different from the rest.
Different and easier? Other and more hard?
Even its awfulness has its reward.
The good news is you have the very best
variety of cancer - every test
shows your prognosis to be excellent -
but free from risk is not quite what I meant.
Sure, you are almost certain to survive...
Well, if you press me, one in ten won’t live.
Even with your fine prospects one in ten
might just get cancer back. You know what then.
But I am full of hopefulness for you.
I wish I felt such optimism too
but here’s the truth - I’ve lost some little thing
of confidence, some blithe protective ring
about myself, like in old toothpaste ads.
There has been one too many of the bads
buffeting me about in my swift life,
and now the prospect of the surgeon’s knife,
the paring knife, the cool serrated edge
to trim the breast, to slice the clever wedge
out of the unsuspecting citrus fruit,
to desegment the orange, to unsuit
the breast for purposes of love and sex.
Such tantalising images could vex
my troubled thoughts, my dreams, perpetually.
This loss of innocence has quite disabled me.
This touch of death, this whisper at my heart
that knows my name has torn the game apart.