Remembering the Day Our Daughter Drew Your Portrait

1.

At three, our youngest

drew you, titled it:

Daddy Yelling “Knock It Off Guys!”

Lopsided, garbled precision. Left eye,

an angry swirl threatening

to swallow your face.

Three hairs. One

bent like an antenna.

Accurate portrait, I thought.

Your foul mood:

the need for a nap,

Seasonal Affective Disorder,

work stress.

Who pays attention to washable

marker other than to scrub it

from stained hands at dinner time?

The next day the hospital printer

would spit a string of sticky labels,

so long the nurse joked

If you weren’t already anemic,

you’re going to be

as she pressed them onto vials.

The next day your life would shift:

from bad mood

to bone marrow biopsy

and mine would grind into

the crush of your grip

as the needle hit bone,

but that night

despite my laughter,

you were not happy

with the picture she drew of you.

2.

Remember when

the receptionist, giving directions, said:

Don’t freak out. The sign says

Cancer Center.

Remember the oncologist saying

I don’t usually get to cure people.

A joy so rare he kept you

as his patient until

your regular doctor called him,

insisting he release

you back to her. He confessed

I’m in trouble with her

on the day you last visited him.

And when you saw her again,

she said, Yes, definitely rare.

Only old ladies get pernicious anemia

and prescribed a vitamin shot

that would keep you alive.

Remember the buzz of the near miss,

the wash of relief, the way the summer sun

in the parking lot that day

pulsed through our bones

as if we had no flesh between us

and the everything that isn’t us:

the silver glint of light on metal,

the turning leaves,

the new dirt smell of spring,

and our daughters, their hair

blowing back as they ran laughing.

3.

On the day our daughter

drew you yelling,

I laughed. You grumped.

We didn’t know to be afraid.

And the next day when we were afraid

we were afraid of the wrong thing.

By the time she was nine,

we knew new things:

There is a play-sized MRI machine

in the Children’s Hospital

and dolls for demonstrations.

Social workers use teddy bears

with chemo ports to explain

to a child what the surgeon

is going to do.

Oncologists consider a cancer

that strikes five hundred children

in this country each year

common.

Draw my portrait today:

a clenched fist

made of glass, teetering

on the edge of a table.

Leave it untitled.