She knows intimately
The process of death

Her 16-year-old adventure buddy
Her 38-year-old mentor friend.

Involuntary manslaughter. Cancer.
Death doesn’t discriminate.

She wipes her hands on her scrubs
and pinches the baby’s chubby cheeks.

“It’s so reviving to see a healthy baby.”
The child’s mother nods in discomfort.

“Did you hear they told my friend he has cancer?
“I don’t know how much fight is in him anymore.

We’ll be together this weekend if he’s up to it.”
I don’t know how she still has fight left in her.

She’s been intimate with grief and death.
But she is invincible, alone in the big world.

After the first death, her soul cried for her Creator.
Now, it’s another name added to the tally.

Oh, death, where is thy sting?