Undying. Michel Faber

umpteen skies and oil rigs manifest

      before us as you sip your drink. You note

      the ones that might be worth the paper and the ink.

      Then you begin to print. Most likely until dawn.

      In your world, Art is never virtual.

      It’s physical, a thing; it can be held,

      you are compelled to make it real.

      By morning, there’ll be rejects cluttering the floor

      and you will ask me which, of several contenders,

      is ideal. We’ll be agreed. This is ‘the one’.

      The one which, when you’re gone, will bear the seal

      of your approval.

      If someone, passing by, observed us chatting,

      they’d think we’re making no big deal of this.

      A few prints shifted to one side, an omelette, a kiss.

      Right There On The Floor

      In our twenty-six years together,

      we did some mighty intimate stuff.

      But I don’t believe we ever

      pushed it further than the time

      you sat stripped to the waist

      on a chair in our bedroom,

      me standing behind you

      with scissors in my hand,

      you looking straight ahead

      at the Edinburgh rooftops

      saying ‘Do it. Just do it.’

      And those locks of limp dark hair

      that still remained, plastered

      to your pale and chemo-blasted skull –

      I took them in my fingers, lifted them,

      and meticulously

      de-sexed you.

      Remission

      You have achieved zero.

      We celebrate with a lunchtime special

      at the Thai, on the way home from the hospital.

      You order Tom Kha Gai because

      your red cell distribution width

      is now 15 (as near to normal

      as makes no difference).

      You choose the crispy fish because

      your lymphocytes are 1.6.

      The waitress pours your jasmine tea

      because your neutrophils are 3.

      We pay extra for some greens

      because your glomerular filtration rate

      is more than 60 ml per minute

      (admittedly an estimate).

      We share banana fritters because

      your albumin is 40 grams per litre.

      Brand new hair – ink-black and curly –

      springs forth because your creatinine

      stands at 69 micromoles.

      After dessert, we order coffee.

      Let everything settle.

      Your paraproteins

      are immeasurably small.

      You have achieved zero.

      Which is to say, the cancer in your marrow