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PERSEPHONE’S CANCER | Tulsi Patel
Each spring she emerges—
her skin pale,
her hair thinner than before.
The family waits at the threshold,
arms full of tulips,
their voices bright with hope.
For a time,
the fields seem hers again.
She walks in the sunlight,
she tastes sweetness,
she calls it remission.
But I know what shadows
lie beneath the soil,
what hands are already reaching.
This is the bargain:
half a year above,
half a year below.
We cannot alter the contract.
We can only measure the days,
adjust the dose
that does not save.
And when she descends again,
the earth remembers
the shape of her absence.
The family waits
with empty arms.
Tulsi Patel is an internal medicine resident at the University of California, San Diego. Born and raised in Chicago, Patel ventured to the East Coast for college and received a degree from Columbia University, where she developed an appreciation for both poetry and humanistic care. She enjoys hiking with friends, staring at art, and raising her cat.