Where the Cancer Center’s New Wing Will Be

They walk into the world again—traffic, wind, siren, drilling—not

having to talk for a while after hours of one blank

room then another, until at last the surgeon knocked

and shook their hands. They watched his wand point out

lit-up, cobwebby shadows, tracing

across the screen of her chest what might

be possible to remove, what might not be. She thought,

trying to focus, of her grandmother’s crocheted laces—

the one strand she got punished for, after unraveling

its loops from the hook, wanting just to see the vanishing of a thing

made so mysteriously from almost nothing anyway. Looking

up now at the sidewalk’s end—a glimpse between scarred buildings

framing the empty space of old row houses knocked down—

blue sky. Thinning wisps of cloud, filaments of milkweed blown.