i cut fresh yellow lemons
with a dull serrated knife
pick out the slimy slippery seeds
and squeeze the tart juice

it gets into tiny cuts on my
hands and burns, burns
the sadness from my mind
that is a revolving door

of thoughts on chemo, him,
paperwork, damaged nerve
endings but not of life
adding red, ripe raspberries

make lemonade sweet
make love under fragrant
sheets free from toxins
his hands as soft as cotton

i dream while drinking raspberry lemonade

~first appeared in Outsider Writers (Summer 2007)