Furiously saying goodbye

I had thought the tumors...


by Grace Paley
from Fidelity. © Etruscan Press, 2008.
Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2008.


I had thought the tumors
on my spine would kill me but
the tumors on my head seem to be
extraordinary competitive this week.


For the past twenty or thirty years
I have eaten the freshest most
organic and colorful fruits and
vegetables I did not drink I
did drink one small glass of red
wine with dinner nearly every day
as suggested by The New York Times
I should have taken longer walks but
obviously I have done something wrong

I don't mean morally or ethically or
geographically I did not live near
a nuclear graveyard or under a coal
stack nor did I allow my children
to do so I lived in a city no worse
than any other great and famous city I
lived one story above a street that led
cabs and ambulances to the local hospital
that didn't seem so bad and was
often convenient


In any event I am
already old and therefore a little ashamed
to have written this poem full
of complaints against mortality which
biological fact I have been constructed for
to hand on to my children and grand—
children as I received it from my
dear mother and father and beloved
grandmother who all
ah if I remember it
were in great pain at leaving
and were furiously saying goodbye


From the Writer's Almanac