An entire season has come and gone
since I pulled up to Mom’s house
rather than the oncology center.
She leaves out a newspaper article for me
about someone, somewhere who changed the world.
The article was published 17 months ago
when she was finishing her freshman round of chemo.
It worked for a while
along with the sophomore and junior regimens.
She has great hopes for this, her senior year of treatment.
Beside the news article, she sets out her college yearbook
“The Cactus.”
On the off chance we won’t recognize her perky ‘do
she marks each photo of herself
with a yellow sticky note.
So we’ll know not to toss
this tome with its prickly pages.