that my oncologist urged me to see
does not take my health insurance
Of course the liver specialist
doesn’t think surgery is an option
of course the phone calls loop back
to menus and hold music
to polite voices that cannot help
of course the numbers climb
quietly, clinically
as if they belong to someone else
and yet the days keep arriving
with their small, ordinary demands
light through the window
coffee cooling in the cup
I keep waking up inside them
inside this body that is both
home and horizon
as if time, despite everything,
has not decided
what to do with me yet.