Now We Wait

//now we wait

NOW WE WAIT

Dots just bigger than
(...) periods
form a triangle of
blueberry-colored
laser marks,
one over your sacrum,
one on each hip.

Our vocabularies
have been expanded.
“Gleason,” is the fortune teller,
the tarot card,
the I Ching.
If your Gleason score is high, you worry.

New combinations
of letters
are engraved on our brains,
familiar now as ‘A-O.K.’
“PSA” is the one to watch.
It has to be checked every three months.

Typically, we’re knocked off balance;
this time, when the treatment --
shots and pills
and radiation --
causes hot flashes
and you feel your strength
oozing down a rabbit hole.