The Cancer Patient Dreams

by Charlotte Matthews

This is the underside of the world
delicate and transparent as ice,
as maple leaves red as heat,
the very ones she raked this morning,
the ones strewn all over the yard,
so the made piles rattle
the exact moment
the train goes by, carrying coal
from the mountains eastward.
She turns and goes inside,
sweeps her room in the dark,
hoping for an alchemist,
someone to change lead into gold.


CHARLOTTE MATTHEWS is the author of five poetry collections (two with Unicorn Press) and a memoir. She teaches non-traditional learners at The University of Virginia. This summer she’s trying to teach her black lab no return the tennis balls she throws for him into the tall grass.