Saturday Poetry Workshop: What Have You Learned?
I learned … that a huge weight lifted off my shoulders just moves
to land hard on my heart.
I wish I felt empty.
I learned that time moves according to memory and
not the other way around.
I could say I learned how to
navigate the miasma of hospitals and jargon and cancer but–
Anyone can learn that.
I learned that the diagnostic differential is really what they call it–just like on T.V.
I learned that a janitor
covering me with our worn Mexican blanket as I slept on the final chair-bed next to you
is what finally made me cry.
—Lisa St. John
This article appears in October 2016.
