Pamela Murray Winters

My Good Side

I was seven when, sledding, I hit the car face-first.
Nine stitches in my right brow. 
I rolled my eyes up, watched the doctor sew.
My mother begged him: Be careful with her face!
Someday she has to find a man!

Fifty when I fell in the street 
on the way to a reading on the rich side of town.
Blood on my face, my white blouse, 
I hoped I looked a little renegade, a punk poet, 
and not like the low-class klutz I was, and am.

Sixty when I tripped on the living room rug, 
dropped the plate of hummus, heard the skitter of chips 
and the smack of my skull on hardwood, 
lay there, stunned, as my husband, unaware, bless him,
hurried to clean up the spilled food.

This is where the little carcinoma was, that same plane
on that same plain face. The right side, above my eye.
I’ve got so much character there you wouldn’t notice it. 

Like my other escapades, it was less about pain, 
more about fear. They got it all, they said. I hope.
As she prepped my face, the assistant chirped: 
If you have to have cancer, this is the one to get.

Copyright 2025 by Pamela Murray Winters

Bio:

Pamela Murray Winters lives and writes in Maryland. She encourages everyone to wear sunscreen and a hat.

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