Ice Ice Baby

Sweater Weather
A community of chatterers says "Don't--
"Don't--Don't you deserve a rest?"
They counsel: "Listen to small pains
Now, they're harbingers, a twinge, a throb
A bulletin, if only I had known,
If only I had seen, had stopped,
It's not too late for you
To change your course--"

So I retreat to the sheets, but I don't
Stew there, they're sweet with soap scent
Still. I'll look back on this king-size
Mattress as one of the last luxuries
Before the fall. I can only take
So much dreaming, and force myself
Down that road again, squeeze out drops
Of salty ice, breathe smoke, curse the slip
That comes between my feet and the earth.

We're all bundled now against anyone
Detecting our true shapes. I squint
Against the cold and try to make you out.
Maybe my hands, gloved or numb,
Could feel your form, somewhere between
The coats and the blankets, the layers of fleece.

In a season of sweaters--
It's an old joke--but
Would you hold it against me
To crave warm skin?

That's about trying to run in winter, when everyone says tsk at your age you're courting knee replacement, you've already put your eye out and you don't even realize it yet, and also about petting a cat curled up on a pile of coats on a bed.

Anyway, two wonderful things I know: After several tests, the breast bump is benign, as I knew it would be, and I am still dead set against the overuse of sophisticated diagnostics when genetic evidence doesn't warrant it. But we'll never get (efficient and ultimately less costly) individualized medicine unless we have a system that's not tied to job or other similar factors for health insurance; the potential for genetic discrimination is too high.

And John wrote a great poem on here, check the comments under Jan. 22; I like to think of it resting there for those adventurous enough to discover it.