Emily Ferrara

Let’s Not Talk About Cancer
In memory of Gena Glicklich – 1942-1988

Rather let’s defy 
diminishment
embody the one-breasted 
warrior woman     as fierce
as the roaring inside her 

Let’s meet at the threshold      
of Hell’s Gate   
soothe one another’s 
battle-scarred bodies 
in steaming sulfurous mud

We’ll travel light   free of
the should haves and what ifs 
untethered 
as we ride out   expansive 
on the first and last 
silver-ferned breath

Copyright 2025 Emily Ferrara

Bio:

Emily Ferrara is the author of The Alchemy of Grief, winner of the Bordighera Poetry Prize. Her work has appeared or is forthcoming in Borderlands, the Lowell Review, San Pedro River Review, POESY Magazine, Worcester Review, MiPOesias, and Sinister Wisdom.

Donation Appeal:
To help victims of cancer and to help foster continuing research into this deadly disease, please consider donating to either The American Cancer Society or The Leukemia and Lymphoma Society.

Thank you.

30 for 30 is sponsored by Potomac Review