The Wardrobe's Best Dressed: Cancer Voodoo by Melissa C. Johnson

This selection, chosen by Managing Editor Krista Cox, is from Cancer Voodoo by Melissa C. Johnson, released by Diode Editions in 2022.

content warning for cancer

Treatment Room

“Two of our state-of-the-art infusion centers have sky-tile ceilings so that
the patients have the illusion of looking up into the sky during therapy.”

The man on his three devices is doing business;
he doesn’t doze, but hustles the nurses, taps
on the keys, raps into the phone, his leg bouncing.

The elegant woman apologizes for removing her wig,
the heavy stone of her ring falls toward her palm as she
lifts her hands to her head, pats her blonde pageboy.

The young mother in her bright pink shirt is late;
her husband has fallen from a ladder, is hurt,
she is sorry for keeping the nurses from dinner.

Mama seems the sickest, the smallest, her veins
collapsing and closing like tunnels in the sand
her patience with the fumbling nurses at odds

with the rage she glints at my father, her care
not to touch any surface in the shared restroom,
her refusal to wash her hands, make conversation

with the shirt-sleeved minister who makes currents
in the air as he circles the room with a predatory
fixed smile, eager to describe the comforts of Paradise.

Even prisoners with armed guards
their handcuffs removed for the IV,
take their poison peacefully, sleepily

warmed and soothed by heated blankets, reclining
chairs, murmuring nurses, children’s art, the table
loaded with processed snacks, hot and cold drinks.

Like Vegas, there are no clocks and the sky
is just a bulb without warmth or promises
shining through blue and white painted glass.

Melissa C. Johnson is a Southern poet living in Central Pennsylvania where she serves as Associate Vice Provost and Associate Dean for Undergraduate Education at The Pennsylvania State University. Her first poetry chapbook, Looking Twice at the World, was published by Stepping Stones Press and the South Carolina Poetry Initiative. Diode Editions published her second chapbook, Cancer Voodoo, poems from which have been featured at American Life in Poetry and Verse Daily. Her poetry has also been published at NELLE, Waccamaw, Borderlands, The Cortland Review, The Northern Virginia Review, and elsewhere.