Hip bone

By Louise Carson

​Pain of bone-coring over-rated:
idea of more terrible than the real.
Herpes blisters hurt worse:
acid kisses dripped from fangs in Old Eden.

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Bone marrow

By Louise Carson

​Extraction of above
still painful after freezing.
Huh, huh, huh.
 
But happily,
there’s some juicy red stuff.
Happily, because,
 
if hard and dry
it would be as if
my bone marrow
 
had already
sold the shop,
moved to Argentina.

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Prizes

By Louise Carson

​Cancer princess goes to the head of the line.
Get her a chair. She needs to sit down.
 
People bring offerings: flowers, sweets.
She wins all but one of the prizes.

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Short poem

By Louise Carson

​Tulips today

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Dead by April

By Louise Carson

Not vigourous old age
but a weak late middle age—then— 
dead by April.
 
But
 
if the cancer doesn’t kill you
and the chemo doesn’t kill you
immunotherapy doesn’t kill you
you may survive— 
 
percentage alive:
66% after 5 years
50% after 10
otherwise,
dead by April.
 
So far, so good, my dead dad says.

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​Louise Carson has published three collections of poetry, the most recent being The Truck Driver Treated for Shock (haiku, Yarrow Press). Her lyric work has been selected for Best Canadian Poetry three times. She also writes mysteries; her ninth, The Cat Crosses a Line, was published in 2024 with Signature Editions. She lives near Montreal in a bungalow surrounded by gardens.