“Shadow,” Elijah Patterson

How sure I felt that it was cancer growing inside your
spine,
roots bursting your thigh
to suck the marrow from your bones.

What else could it be after all those nights
exploring my own breasts alone in the dark,
circling for the hard knot whose name I already knew
and feared?

The raisin in oatmeal.
The secret ticking of a bomb
placed just over my still heart.