by Cynthia Bernard
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Guerrilla Warfare
The Southeast Asia of my skin
is where I house the enemy
as it dodges, hides, digs down deep,
plants incendiary devices
under camouflaged places.
Wait—I didn’t enlist,
never went through basic training,
and I haven’t been issued
any equipment.
And in this terrain—
once a resort, green shade,
crystal waters—
now, one excavation
after another, a crazy-quilt,
cross-hatched with echoes
of the surgeon’s
precise needlework.
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13 Ways to Respond to Yet Another Biopsy Report
(1) Daydream about peeling off all your skin, one bloody strip at a time. Living skinless, dripping, wrapped perhaps in parchment paper (no plastic, please) to protect the furniture—no skin, no moles, no going-crazy melanocytes.
(2) Remember heedless days in the sun, burned nose, peeling arms. Cover up when you walk, wear a hat.
(3) Pull up the last 6 months of skin-check photos, magnify them on-screen. Try to discern: Why is this mole different than the others? Laugh and then cry when you simply can’t tell.
(4) Imagine one surgery after another. Imagine your body covered with excision scars, each cross-hatched with echoes of the surgeon’s precise needlework.
(5) Lie down with your Beloved. Curl up inside his arms and legs. Stay there for a long time.
(6) Inspect your freckles, your spots, your moles, the bumps-that-aren’t-moles-because-they- match-your-skin-color. Wonder, which one will be next?
(7) Join a Facebook group, read story after story. Weep.
(8) Realize you are living in a war zone, a civilian in a war zone – no, wait, you ARE the war zone, you house the enemy, an enemy that dodges and hides. It’s guerrilla warfare in the Southeast Asia of your skin.
(9) Toss and turn, jolt awake. What have they been up to overnight? They don’t sleep. Are they growing, spreading out, digging deep?
(10) Tend biopsy wound, set excision date, count the days.
(11) Spin a mind-video attacking this traitor, your skin. Gouge out each and every mole. Add a Beethoven soundtrack. Notice the anger, notice how good it feels to rip and tear. Notice how strongly you want to say “No.”
(12) Sit with the fact that your “No” means nothing.
(13) Make breakfast. Wash the dishes. Do some laundry. Take a walk. Move, and then be still.
Author Bio: Cynthia Bernard is a woman in her early 70s, a long-time classroom teacher, grades 6-12 math and science, including more than a dozen years working with incarcerated youth and adults, and an emerging writer of poetry, short fiction, and creative nonfiction. She lives on a hill overlooking the ocean, about 25 miles south of San Francisco. Her writing has appeared in many journals and anthologies. She was selected as the Poet-Protector of Deer Creek Falls in the northern Sierra Nevada foothills.
