my trip to the nursing home.

she moves as if the world hasn't stopped for her, as if 
the world hasn't collapsed into her diagnosis of malignancy,
into the golf ball tumor resting under her right ear,
hard and recalcitrant between loose, fatty strands of skin
the doctor will cut into it, baptize her in chemo
but today life is waiting 
so she plods onward towards her lunch table, 
toward the dementia stricken
the woman next to me has 90 year old brown, sunken eyes
she says
life cycles and no matter what
cycle back to hope