And in his eyes I saw something

I had thought never to see

In those laughing, loving eyes

An impossibility

It was anger, rage

Burning fast and free

And all the more impossible

To feel it burning me

And while my heart was distracted

I almost missed what he said

I wanted to run from those sterile walls

But I braced myself instead

“Do you understand?”  he asked

Now shouting at me

The nurse quick-stepped in

With a dose of complacency

I backed out of the room

Pretending it wasn’t a retreat

His mother, lip curled back

Glared at me

With eyes as sharp

As the shoes on her feet

“If you’re going to upset him

You might as well leave.”

I laughed and laughed

It was nothing but a joke

And she was the punch line

I laughed until I chocked

“Don’t you see, old woman?

He needs to be upset

I’d rather have him hating me

Than drugged up and half dead”

And then I was crying

Because I understood

The words that he had said to me

Made more sense than they should

After the anger, before the pain

He touched my hand

And said my name

“Make my disease a charity”

And now I understood

I would do it for his mother

Who still couldn’t face

This ugly, growing problem

Unless she came at it sideways

If she gave it a name

And it could be paid

Then it became real

Something she could hold

Something she could kill

And if with commercials

She sent to the homes

Of every other person

Then it was not her own

And if he became a problem

That belonged to everyone

She could pretend that the problem

Was not her dying son