Morose Monday.

Growing old, we no longer read palms.

I am consumed with crazy health problems.
Either I have cancer or I'm constipated. I haven't decided which way I lean.
Cancer is everywhere. It hides in joints
and beneath the fatty tissue. It waits
to spring upon your good fortune like a fox
on new hatched chicks.
Now I have a pain, maybe a muscle pull,
or appendicitis, or it's possible
a lump like a golfball
but nowhere near as clean and bright
chewing up my insides.

Does anyone get hernias anymore?

The doctor will see me in three weeks, which will give
me plenty of time to brood and hope
that maybe I have a tapeworm. Something I can blame
besides myself for what I see in the mirror. Something
that can be removed, like a ball of hair in a drain,
to make everything new again.