In my pink bed
in our shared room
 
I’d wake to spy them
lumped to your leg, your back
 
the cats like glamorous cancers
glommed onto your body.
 
Each night they came,
close nestling
 
those nodes, those coils
those neoplastic sleepers.
 
I’d wake again to find
the cats metastasized
 
to breast, to brain—
how I envied you
 
your companions
that special status.
 
Even now it wakes me
in the night sometimes, how
 
in our twin beds
in our shared room, the cats
 
the cancer
only came to you.