There All Along (Poem)

There All Along

     Nothing is so small
        that it does not return.
         ~ Dana Gioia


Cancer insists
on an afterlife—

no surprise!

Refusing to agree
is an option

but no comfort.


You send signs,
and a year later,

reemerged, you

have killed, leaving
me to confirm

this easy resistance

to my writing of you
returning home.


Months later, tests
read and analyzed

and finally understood

tell me what was there
all along.


Dedicated to Patrick William Doallas (March 25, 1950 - May 5, 2009)

© 2016 Maureen E. Doallas

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* Dana Gioia, "Nothing Is Lost" in 99 Poems: New & Selected (Graywolf Press, March 2016)