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.