Cancer

The tap still drips.  
The map still has  
red pen stains    
marking a drive  
from your parents  
to mine  
and in the rocking chair I sometimes sit  
dreaming off days dusted by time  
when the curtains were white  
and I still sang  
songs of home  
to refresh my memory.  
Those were days    
when home no longer    
sounded petrifying  
as if leaving here  
and leaving what had become  
the last memory of you  
taken in the last days gone by  
was madness.  
The sickness  
is stagnant as the butterfly clip clinging    
to my dried black hair  
and still craving you.  
How I miss the days of unclear diagnosis  
where you still breathed my perfect air.  
The tap still drips.  
The map still has red pen stains  
marking a drive.