BRIANNA by Stephanie Sherman

I have never seen

someone dance so gracefully

across a minefield.

Too many tracks

across your young skin

amidst the sparkly polka dots

of your freckles.

How you ride those

searing rails of your incisions

like they were

smiles, I don’t know.

Maybe you don’t know either

and maybe you are tired

but how you burn

those curving flames

with your limbs

like you are on fire

and will burn fire with fire.

And no dose of radiation

can obliterate your radiant

unfolding body in space

your determined

breath that lifts your

arms to the heavens to say

not yet

because you are here on a mission

and have more than a million

dances left

to dance out the devils

and burn out the toxins

with your light.

Tonight, I hold your

light in my mind

your smile in my mind

your dance in my heart.

Your dance will outsmart

even the most stubborn

cancers.

(2016; Berkeley, CA)