This one day at Duke, John and I spot a man in a furry fox suit. He’s sitting in the lobby with a typewriter. You give him a word, and he furiously types up a poem based on it, as you wait.
I have a long wait at the crowded breast clinic, and John wanders off to find lunch. He stops by the poetry fox on the way back.
A woman ahead of him gets a rambling prose poem about a childhood memory of Poetry Fox’s. Someone else gets a limerick composed around the word hope: nope, soap, dope. The fox seems a little worn down. When it is his turn, John gives the fox the word nonplussed.
“Nonplussed,” says the fox. “Okay, fine.” And he types out a free-verse poem that, while indicating that Poetry Fox also does not know the true dictionary meaning of nonplussed, is a worthy souvenir.
Stay / nonplussed. Make / them work / to crack / you, writes Poetry Fox, among other things.
“You’ll like this,” says John when he shows back up in the breast clinic with the typed poem.
“Hmm. That’s not really my emotional philosophy,” I say. “I like being cracked open.”
“It’s not a bad mantra for the medical journey, though,” says John. “Especially considering it came from a man in a fox suit.”
“Good point,” I say. All the warfare jargon around cancer—the battling, the surviving, the winning/losing, the kicking its ass—hasn’t been ringing true for me. But I’m good with not letting it crack me.
“I will be the densest little nut in the world,” I say to John. “Green and unyielding. A squirrel’s effing nightmare.”
“One small spot,” says John, squeezing my hand.