Annelies Zijderveld

Birthday party with uninvited guest

There’s no coming back from cancer
I once thought hearing the word held
napalm
meta-static white
noise like snow

it dusted everything in ash

a wedding late
to the party

guitar strings forlorn
from disuse

a grand canyon rift across the heart

a one-lump-bigger-than
the-other reconstruction

a removal of the thing and then the thing after

email detonation: two months left sentence—

that never fully realized
still we live life
that we think we need to live
for other people who couldn’t
care less