University of Northern Iowa

The CureAuthor(s): Mary FitzpatrickSource: The North American Review, Vol. 290, No. 2, The National Poetry Month Issue (Mar. -Apr., 2005), p. 10Published by: University of Northern IowaStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/25127337 .

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N A R

MARY FITZPATRICK

The Cure

These two sacs of skin?

lymphs and nodes, milk and colostrum?

swell and recede

Buds then flowers, erotic

utilitarian mammaries

And then

ticking time bombs we must probe before they detonate

Are they still okay?

Why must we know

the language of cancer?

Metastasis, oncology, sarcoma

More Greek than we bargained for ...

I see these sacs scooped out

and hollowed, replaced with harmless batting

Butterflies, laundry, dayrunners, silk floss

Zipped back up and

less bouncy; same look, no worry.

ALBERT GARCIA

The Sea of Galilee and the Sacramento River

I figured they were steelhead, those fish

that tore the nets and filled two boats

after Jesus told Simon Peter to cast

into deeper water. Ten years old, fidgeting in my family's pew, in the dark light of the Sacred Heart Catholic Church, I could only imagine Jesus and Simon

wearing hip waders, standing in an autumn riffle

of the Sacramento, pulling in one

shining sea-run rainbow after another.

Simon starts to believe after Jesus shows him the right size fly and how

to present it. And when Monsignor Casey read Simon's repentant plea?

"Depart from me, Lord, for I am a sinful man"?

I thought, too bad, and dwelled on the nets ripping, flapping silver filling the boats, joyful shouts of fishermen

lining the banks. I just knew

how Simon and the others had felt that day, how a guy can spend hour after hour

staring into dark currents,

waiting for a sign or someone to lead him

upstream to better water, only to trudge

back home with an empty ice chest.

So when Monsignor read that they dropped everything and followed, my mind gleamed

with the scales of a thousand fish

and I thought, yeah, I'd tag along with that guy, too.

FINALISTS JAMES HEARST POETRY PRIZE

10 NORTH AMERICAN REVIEW March-April 2005

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