This poem by award winning ACT poet, Suzanne Edgar, uses a razor-edged scalpel to cut through that robust, jolly-hockey sticks mask of confidence we so often wear when our own mortality is threatened. Like the Greek muse Clotho who spun the thread of life from distaff onto her spindle, this poet spins the raw thread of fear into something beautiful.
I’ve got the biopsy blues
from rather gruesome news:
feels like a punch in the gut,
they say my throat’s to be cut.
A man with a steady hand
will snip off a little gland
in the shape of a butterfly ‑
both the wings must die.
He’d better not nick a chip
off neck, or cheek, or lip.
After my throat’s sewn up
and I have woken up
in the coldly clinical world
of an alien hospital ward,
will I still be a similar me
or less like I used to be?
Still feel a dizzying swing
as my mood lifts off with a zing?
Hope I can sing soprano
not drop to a throaty alto,
if I can even speak.
I bet I’ll look a freak.
That surgeon’s pretty cool,
they reckon he’s nobody’s fool
so I shouldn’t think this way.
He operates twice a day,
it’s how he pays his way
to reside in Double Bay.
When a butterfly has to die
it never wonders why.
Suzanne Edgar
Butterfly Clip Art : DJamesm #mce_temp_url#
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