Release

She hears gargled whispers,
not the ahs of an open throat:
something’s caught there.

She hears it again,
ka-ka-ka-ka,
a small bird lodged in her larynx:
cancer.

She curls in a nest,
not a womb,
but a briar of fear.

Hidden within the sinew,
among the muscle’s twigs and branches,
in the bone’s gray shadows,

a snake closes about her,
its thick black rope
twisting, severing.

She rasps for release,
for the ah, ah, ah of life,
but gurgles the word amen.