Cancer

by PeriwinkleGeo

She is memory she is pain,
the neurons firing inside your brain

She is your most precious memory
and your dreams before they become your darkest fears
She is the spirit that lives as a neighbor to your own
and every time you cry and can’t remember why
she is the source of your anguish,
she who sheds anonymous tears
for the pains of those forgotten

She is the ink stain on a weary hand
smudging against newly written lines
making the words indistinguishable from
muddy puddles in city gutters
much like the stories of your ancestors,
stories unspoken for one, ten, a hundred years

In fact, she is the last time your name
will be spoken by the living
before it is left to the mercy of the past
The fate of all names, perhaps,
but precious magic to the
soft imprints of newspaper soot
on sweet Luna’s face,
she who never forgets

She is moonlight sliding through cloudy skies
The first night celebrating spring’s waning light
The homecoming of solstice in summertime

She is not the crab, you know,
but the secrets found inside its shell

-Cancer