Magnitude

     -- for Terry

Friday nights we gather at
a Mexican restaurant
to whine about failed diets,
traffic jams, noisy kids,
mundane events we carry
like stones in otherwise
uneventful lives, wishing
for something--anything--
to scatter the span
of similar days.

Until it does.  Until,
one day, one of us
discovers a lump
in her breast, comes
to dinner with blue targets
tatooed on her sternum,
in her armpit, waits
for flesh to be cut,
chemicals to drip
through veins.

The mass--a mere dot
on a mammogram
X-ray--is large enough
to place normalcy
in past tense,
something we crave
and can't regain
no matter how
many margaritas
we sip.

(c)Bill Gloss          2007

from The Human Touch

San Francisco Bay Press