The Goddess of the Hustle
by James R. Whitley

When the ninth treatment to shrink the tumor
in my mother’s liver proved unsuccessful,
she said no more.
No more to the chemotherapy and dashed hopes.
No more to the avoidable agony.
I come from a long line of women who excelled
at telling men what to do, so that doctor,
urging her to continue on, must have annoyed her
to no end, like a classical thorn in her vulnerable side.
So I understand why she swore at him even as
his compassionate fingers checked her waning pulse
or adjusted the level of relief in her morphine drip,
and why she finally ordered him to
stop the futile doses of radiation.
And she probably thought the birds and clouds in that
unbearably blue Virginia sky were mocking her—
a mere child in her fifties unable to bathe herself,
watching helplessly as her dreams piled up before her
like a useless heap of pistachio shells, her mind
stained deep red with the very thought of them.
She must have known this was her final
turn under the glittering globe, her last chance
to grab Kismet by his unfaithful balls and
lead him around in that one remaining dance.
And although I wasn’t there to comfort
either one of them, I imagine she felt like
Cleopatra did as the dutiful asps slithered
away from her punctured throat, thinking:
Nothing left to do here,
but lie down and wait
for the chariot to swing low.