Revising one's plans

So, just over two weeks ago, the doctors showed me a photograph of the cancer infecting my intestines. And last week, I went under the knife and had that piece of the plumbing removed.

With that done, I've also lost most of my teaching related to-do list, the semester is scrapped, and I'm not sure what to do with myself right now. But I need a list, so I'm thinking that these few months, while I'm recovering and possibly still fighting off illness, I'll focus on my own poetry. I knew last semester that I needed to create time to write in my daily life; here is the time. I know I need to send some more work "out" and of course, read more; here is the time.

The surgeon is near my age. We went to universities in neighboring towns. I wonder if I ever fed him a meal in all my years of waiting tables.

They make it seem so easy; open, snip, stitch, staple. Yet, I feel like a handful of loose beads after the strand has been severed.