Little Knives

That bruised fist clenches
again in my niece’s chest.
A surgeon fishes a guide wire
through her thigh, lighting
a path to her stuttering heart.

All the little knives will come,
will cut her before she’s done.

One year ago, doctors slapped
a map of her body on a screen.
Treasure hunt for cancer.
X marks every spot where
a scalpel will slice away
part of everything she needs,
or doesn’t, as the case
may be. A miracle, I think,
her body a canvas of stars.

She will live, I say. Why not
this brown-haired girl
with the neck of a swan
and the nearly soundless way
she enters a room?

Dara-Lyn Shrager is the co-founder/editor of Radar Poetry. Her poetry collection, Whiskey, X-Ray, Yankee, was published by Barrow Street Books in 2018. Her poems appear or are forthcoming in many journals, including Crab Creek Review, Southern Humanities Review, Barn Owl Review, and Nashville Review. Learn more at: www.daralynshrager.com and www.radarpoetry.com