Origin Story

Somewhere in the villages of Belarus
a bloodline silently mutated
and that was the prologue

A single bad cell divided in two
This happened three hundred million times before
it started to hurt

I was having these dreams
of small woodland creatures suckling
on my nipples, their sharp mouths the shape of stars

“These are big enough to mount on my wall,”
said the stunned doctor
when he pressed his fingers against my tumors,
warm and alive

There were four of them, each with its own satellite
They became the planets that my life
had to revolve around, my centers of gravity,
rulers of the tides, they had breached
my body’s barriers, ocean seeping
against the bulkheads of a sinking ship

Before operating, the hospital asked
if I wanted a Rabbi. My scans lit up
like a galaxy, calcium white starbursts
scattering their sinister hooks
into my 30s

I was wheeled into that butcher shop
of sleeping women,
their yellow fat curling on trays, scooped away
by a sweating surgeon covered in blood

Inside the MRI tube I want to write
the same sentence found
on the concentration camp wall:
If there is a God,
He will have to beg for my forgiveness.

By Sascha Cohen