Wigs

G can choose from six wigs
though now, a year post-chemo, mostly it's her own hair
she lets fly in the wind.

There's the blond bob and five shades of brunette
all short compared to R
but a couple lace down to mid-back.

She says there were days she had to find some way to rise
and feed her kids during three hundred days of treatment
so she did, wig or not.

She says her skin, like her clothes, sloughed off her hips.
Photos show her staring at the camera, daring it
to say she looks anything but alive.

Vitiligo developed across her upper chest and back and face
but somehow a heart appeared on her right shoulder blade
about the size of nearly touching your thumb to ring finger

it's still there
although the heart that grew on her face faded.
I think she grew extra because she has more heart than most

anyone I know. So now when she wears spaghetti strap shirts
and the sun comes out if she forgets it turns the pale heart pink
which seems appropriate, if risky, for a cancer survivor.

Still, she smiles when I trace my index finger on the perimeter
like tracking a route on a map of her heart
while her own hair smells of coconut shampoo.

She says she loves Halloween
so maybe the wigs will come in handy then
when she can hide amidst everyone from D.