Christine Amezquita

Sterile bed sheets and
bleak lights. Just Mom and doctors.
“Stage IV,” they told her.

She sat upright and
listened to murmurs and speech.
Outside the window,

Mom watched the leaves skip
alongside cloning pebbles,
falling in craters

until noon. Dad went
to see her first. He emerged
stoic and told me

nothing but details
(less than forty percent chance)
and committed me

to schedules of
surgeries (bilateral
oophorectomy)

and night stays. I stared
as I listened to him say,
“chemotherapy.”

“Do you understand
what is going on?” he asked.
I shook my head no.

Outside, the leaves skipped
(It spread past the ovaries)
with pebbles in streets.