The Right Question

in the oncology clinic walk a hundred veterans 

the life they’ve lived draped on their shoulders —

like a well-loved vintage coat, scuffmarks keeping the score 

— here to see doctors who try to explain 

why emaciated bodies are fat with inflating renegades 

that they cannot police

 

perhaps because we are too big from having stuffed ourselves sick

with burgers and ash and wine and bloody meat or

maybe because we are too small to hold all our luck and 

misfortune overflows like wine from the chalice of pain

​

why
             why
                          why

​

                                       the patients ask

                                                                              why me?

 

the p-values say

sometimes it is destined in your blood

but otherwise it could be

the kiss of the cigarette you held between your lips 

the salted fish your mother cooked every night

the glass of beer you clinked last Friday with your mates

the crispy charred bacon you love to death

the golden summer sun that bronzed your lovely skin 

it is because you did not put your life on a diet

 

but if life is meant to be lived, 

how do we outrun a bad diet?

 

oh, we don’t? — auguries of death haemorrhage on paper

no, the books aren’t wrong, the numbers don’t lie

but they forgot to ask the right question:

which do you want 

life or years?