MYNA WALLIN

Tiny Monsters

There are cryptic anomalies, numbers
that won’t conform, spilling outside lines
like abstract paintings—
haemoglobin test levels
tumbling outside of parameters.
I’m straining to hear my doctor’s voice
as if through a muffled speaker. I thought

if I avoided a life of excesses, ate
my broccoli, didn’t smoke, walked daily,
stood on my head once a week,
I’d be spared. Just a civilized glass of red
now and then, the freakish ability
to sleep like an Alpine marmot or hedgehog.

I’m given requisition forms, tests—
see me in seven weeks, anxiety spilling over
like a boiling fondue pot. Left to conjecture,
I lean toward melodrama. I’ve died
a hundred thousand times.

But never has my blood turned
on me. It’s always been trustworthy,
coursing through me like an unspoiled
waterway, rushing in and out
with strong tides. And now,
it’s enfeebled in some indefinable way.

Waiting for test results is gambling,
with nothing but a hopeful blow on the dice
or spin of the wheel for Lucky Red!
I send up prayers, bargain with God—
I’ll make better use of my time
left on earth,
be a volunteer, stop gossip, and sweets.

My body is misbehaving, I must sit
in not-knowing, that agonizing place
between negative and positive,
life and threat, that dark shadowy
spot on the x-ray, a microscopic place
where tiny monsters divide and replicate.