“I’VE BEEN DIAGNOSED…”
she said to me across the small
round table in the clattering coffee shop
on what had been a normal Tuesday morning.
No! I wanted to cover my ears,
but I watched the foul words leak from her lips
and fill the room
like a thick fog in a ghostly creep,
changing reality
and hanging there, heavy and cold.
She was brave, determined, even positive,
and I wanted to shore her up,
bolster her courage,
but all that came to mind
were tired bromides and empty platitudes,
so I swallowed them,
their putrid taste expanding
the lump in my throat.
Instead, I simply reached out to her.
As I covered her cold hands with mine,
I realized with horrified certainty
that variations of this scene
would replay themselves
multiple times
in these autumn years.
Jan Spence’s writing ranges from humorous, poignant, and tongue-in-cheek to raw reality. She is the author of Navigating the Old Road and has work appearing in Texas Poetry Calendar (2013), A Book of the Year (2009, 2011, and 2013), Versivico (2008), Red River Review, Collections (I, II, and III), The Senior Voice and others. She lives in Texas with her husband and cat where she enjoys teaching and practicing yoga, visiting with family, traveling and, of course, writing poems.
“I’ve been diagnosed…” is one of her poems from Navigating the Old Road.
