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Coping with Cancer > Support > OncoLink Reading Room > Poetry

9. Healing

Alicia Ostriker
From: The Crack in Everything. University of Pittsburgh Press, 1996.
Last Modified: July 16, 2003

Brilliant-
A day that is less than zero
Icicles fat as legs of deer
Hang in a row from the porch roof
A hand without a mitten
Grabs and breaks one off-
A brandished javelin
Made of sheer
Stolen light
To which the palm sticks
As the shock of cold
Instantly shoots through the arm
To the heart-
I need a language like that,
A recognizable enemy, a clarity-
I do my exercises faithfully,
My other arm lifts,
I apply vitamin E,
White udder cream
To the howl
I make vow after vow.