Loss of Friend

Tumors. Carved out. I’m awake and afraid to touch my soft belly…flat…empty. Seven years growing in me like a child with no heart…hard, round, weighty.

Family is often dysfunctional; well, mostly families are dysfunctional. Young cops, early 1970’s, we cared about our town’s drunks. Nobody else cared, only us. We

She is lying, partially wrapped in a plastic sheet, on a cold metal table in our prep room. Her head is tilted slightly away from