30 Days Hath September 2016 | Day 28 | Untitled by Fay Chiang

The months fly by

   from last November

      until September;

these past ten months

    I’ve been admitted and discharged

         from the hospital six times

The cancer metastasized

      into both lungs

and then the brain:

   radiation in February

        to a mass by the right temple

neurosurgery to the top of the brain

      in July and last Friday

  the last radiation treatment

      to the tumor

             in the frontal lobe

A cancer survivor for twenty three years

   diagnosed when my daughter

         was only four years old,

I feel blessed having seen her grow up

   feeling blessed to still be here

          and to still be standing

Fay Chiang is a poet and visual who believes culture is a spiritual and psychological weapon used for the empowerment of people and communities.Working at Project Reach, she is also a member of Zero Capital and the Orchard Street Advocacy Wellness Center. Battling her tenth bout of breast cancer, she is working on her memoir.Seven Continents Nine Lives (Bowery Books) is her most recent collection of poetry. And she is the mother of the inimitable Xian.