Paula Burns
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Carol

I took a photograph of you wearing a tribal hat,
you looked strong, like a leader.

Do you remember when we met in the hallway
at Maggie’s 50th – how we burst out laughing?
You because you’d grown so ‘big’ – courtesy of cancer drugs
me, because I’d become so ‘small’ – courtesy of ME.

‘Christ,’ you whooped,’ we look like fucking Little and Large!’
Years later
I remember stumbling down the pathway that led to your beautiful garden,
making an exit after a visit, to the sound of your voice shouting,
‘Think positive, think bloody bollocks!’

And of course you were correct, because we were both fed up
of the hippy/dippy New Age analysis of illness, knowing that
in our prior lives we could have lit a fire up the arse of the world and
that sometimes it’s more appropriate to swear - than to quote
Sontag,
in an attempt to write yet another reasoned, impeccably referenced
critique
as to why
illness is often arbitrary, how we are not omnipotent, and that once
you take
genetics, environment and the cynical force of Darwinism out of the
equation
you’re left with the soul cut adrift and the questionable notion of the
existence of God.


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All artwork and written material is copyright © Paula Burns 2015.  No reproduction or use without the artist's consent.