T H E   O P T I M I S T

The film showed stars of varying magnitude,
the left side Libra, and the right side Cancer,
mapping the brain’s horizons, vanishing points
respectively of reason and desire.
The doctors liked her cheerful attitude,
hope being all she had in her position.

She waited, calm. Touch burned out first, then vision.
Emotion slipped. Last would be lungs and heart.
But, noting trends, they told her taste was next.
She asked then, could they pick out her last dress?

She wasn’t making light. It seemed to her
that cancer just rehearsed life’s attitude
that one’s desires must taper to a point,
which has position, but no magnitude.



"Confusing Weather" originally appeared in Poetry 176, no. 1 (Apr. 2000): 27.