By Lynne Byler
For seven years from molded plastic chairs,
I saw what cancer consumes,
unsated by limbs or organs or hope.
So, in this place that excels at loss,
that my hair wants nothing
to do with me is small potatoes.
Today in the shower, it decamps in earnest.
My splayed fingers lift it from underneath
and large wet bunches catch in my hands.
I pull it out,
layer it on white tile,
clump upon clump upon clump.
If I pull the HELP cord,
the nearest nurse will rush in
and grab me under the arms.
In her wet embrace,
I’ll ask what drug
there is for a sorrow,
dwarfed by other possible losses,
yet unrelenting in
the comfort it devours.
Lynne Broderick Byler lives and writes poetry in Pelham, Massachusetts. She has had poems published in Autumn Sky Daily, Intima, Writing in a Woman’s Voice, and The Journal of the American Medical Association. Fernwood Press will publish her first collection, The Mice Are Back, in December 2026.