30/30 Day 29

It’s the penultimate day of 30/30!

I’ve met my fundraising goal, so if you’d like to give a donation, check out Katherine Abrams or Jessica Duffy or Pratibha Kelapure or Centa Therese. They’re still working toward their fundraising goals and they and Tupelo Press would be very appreciative.

Today’s poem is a triolet. I first discovered triolets when Allison Joseph’s The Rondeau Roundup had a triolet contest. I was an honorable mention with my “Film Noir at the Courthouse Door” and I hadn’t written one since. For a triolet, it’s important that the repetitive lines be able to carry different meanings (or they can also just be really, really powerful on their own, but that’s harder to pull off I think). I kept wanting to write another one, but the right words never presented themselves until I heard “for getting it” as “forgetting it” and was like “Bam! Triolet Power!”

This one wasn’t written in ten minutes and there was no entraining. I just sort of picked and poked at it all month and this is what I came up with. It’s not quite where it needs to be, I don’t think. Does it come across that the italics are my oncologist? I have so much to say about this whole “it’s not your fault” rhetoric they spewed at me during chemo, but then BAM, after it was over they were like “Well, how did you get cancer so young?” Uhm, fuck you? It was a new oncologist because the one that was with me through chemo went off to a different cancer center in town that isn’t within my insurance network. I have a lot of feelings about the concept of blame and responsibility when it comes to cancer. That’s something I’ll probably write more about later (or not).