That Vaporous Scarshaped Smile

And later, coming upstairs to leave,
her friend showed me a caring smile:
sympathy as another’s mother, as
my mother’s friend. Some words about
the homemade beef broth she brought.
Coughing, healing, I laughed; and downstairs,
I thought, above the whispered water running
to fill another cup to calm her throat
dried as if to cry, my mom moved hand through hair.

We had heard murmurs of the other’s words:
I saw my friend’s discomfort in
his blue eyes as I joked about going bald,
and my mom shared a story—
of uncertainty suffering not from any
visible fact, like my bare scalp, but from a word
spoken almost accidentally months ago, as if
the doctor could give that news,
reach to end, the part about
God or fate or chance, and not even say it.

—EWW