Elegy: Joe Sursavage

"What have you done with my brothers?"  you said, 
but we had none to offer, only children.

A green shoot
pressed through your mind.

The tumor also wanted to live.
Cerebrum, liver, lymph nodes: it hides—
as Rumi said of love—within these,
until one day it cracks them open.

We raced the cancer across highways, 
snow blue in headlights, dark against glass.
The great trucks kept us company all night.
Wreck ahead, slick patch, Roger—the gruff CB a comfort, 
like low voices in the next room.

We arrived with skilanti in natural casings, potato pancakes, shoo-fly pie, 
but you said "Poison" in your failing voice.

You had gotten too small.
At first I didn't know you were mine 
and I turned away. 
Then I knew you by your ears,
those enormous ears.
I sat and looked—blood pooling black in your legs, 
silver stubble, eyes full of milk,
until it was beautiful,
your life eating itself away like morning.

The nurses moved 
down the halls
steady as barges.

They gave us
little squares 
of lemon-scented paper
and let us take turns
swabbing your open mouth.