The glial trees
===============

* Emma Zimmerman

*   Poetry
*   bereavement
*   cancer
*   glioblastoma
*   literature in medicine
*   public health
*   medical ethics/bioethics

> I will chop the mesquite today.
> 
> Autoclave the axe at 121°C,
> 
> Soft tissue blade.

> And till the beds, leaving
> 
> The furrows of your brain to fallow:
> 
> A grey, nitrate-sucking matter.

> To arbitrate
> 
> Between arteries and roots.
> 
> With my pinking-shears.

> Deep pause.
> 
> For the Winged Reaper who will burn this malignant tare.

> No. *The axe is laid unto the root.*

> I will chop the mesquite today.
> 
> Autoclaved the axe at 121°C.

> And the weight-bearing exercise sprigs
> 
> Osteoblasts from the dry chunk-bark—mixing
> 
> Mud and skull.

> *Inoperable*! The iron mocks between my strawberry hands,

> Which pray
> 
> That I will regret having sold
> 
> Your black appaloosas.

> Aren't you proud to see me fell it?
> 
> As if your body still were able to trim and
> 
> Sing, and muck the stalls.

> Here, a widening hole, undaunted
> 
> By my surgical knots, brimming
> 
> With the blood from last night's monsoon.

> Oh! In the angiogenesis,
> 
> There were romantic intentions and,
> 
> 100 acres of myelin sheath.

> How did we come here, to
> 
> This desert. And how do we exit but
> 
> By the white lightning's crack.

## Footnotes

*   Competing interests None.

*   Provenance and peer review Not commissioned; internally peer reviewed.