My tumor was fierce,
massive, like the explosion, devastation,
upheaval that happened in Manhattan
but could be heard by persons on the street,
in parks, on patios, in Central Brooklyn.
People attending an outdoors poetry reading
at a festive outer-borough festival
ducked when the bomb went boom.
I crouched into myself
when I saw my malignant growth on X-ray film,
as if I could protect my kidneys, my glands,
from the beginnings of war,
even as a major battle
loomed closer than my front door.