Iguanas

New York squirrels, fully equipped for such nonsense,
leap like ninjas from branch to bare branch,
assault birdfeeders for nourishment,
leave enough on the snow to share with
sparrow orphans in this storm.
None are as pussy as iguanas who,
at the slightest freeze in the wilds of Florida,
tumble from trees, collapse in the brief chill,
goddamn morons.

Single digits don’t excite me either,
but I’ll be damned if frozen water of all things
will take me out.
I don’t remember when I stopped trusting my body,
when every recommended test, eyes, breasts, colon
became a dance with the macabre, not simple
right of passage, insurance to cover the cost
a badge of honor in this great experimental country
I accidentally landed in, head first.

Maybe it was the pap that needed further exploration,
a deeper sample. As I waited, the Murrow building
swallowed a classroom of toddlers, in the days when
waiting rooms could show the news,
when most of could agree dead babies were bad.
Perhaps it was that single mammogram

where mineral flecks of calcium required a cut,
biopsy by the hands of the coldest woman
to ever touch my breasts, half an hour late,
no bedside cheer, absolute bitch from where I laid,
each tit dangling thru a hole in the table,
a slice from one, metal marker planted
the size of a match head to keep track
of the snowstorm inside, whether it
turned to a blizzard or remained a
flurry of hormones on Spring Break.

Maybe it’s the friends I’ve lost to one cancer or another,
quickly, quietly, hearsay or under my denying nose.
I imagine my own body glittered with malignancies
disguised as spare flesh, bat wings, more chins than
even I might need. Every flicker of strange velocity
must signal an arid ending.

I balance this paranoia with the unforgiveable fact
that I will indeed die, that my whole world will die,
from pets to parents, with only the order yet to be
determined, deck of cards in endless shuffle.
I want to know the whole deal, not wait to see
who’s number is up next.

I’ve had a good run myself,
expect and don’t expect my time,
once endless before me, to shut off

suddenly like the water of an
unpaid bill. Often I dream of
cutting off all physicians,
save my money for caviar and really good truffles.
I am tempted to ignore invisible signs,
disobey doctors who only want to help,
sigh quietly as I enter the office,
begging them not to fire me.

I look for my iceberg to float away on
before the shit really hits the fan,
taking along a few good books,
my old futon and blankets,
frankincense, not much else,
not much time.

Long Islander by birth, Cheryl A. Rice has lived in New York’s Hudson Valley for over forty years. Her work has been appeared in Chronogram, Home Planet News, Florida Review, Misfit Magazine, Trailer Park Quarterly, Ragged Lion Journal, and Long Island Quarterly, among others. She earned a BS at SUNY New Paltz, and half of an MA at the University at Albany.