Recurrence
Worried it might come back,
you gently remove your top, gown yourself in green.
Breasts compressed with paddles,
you stand and hold your breath.
A small burst of radiation,
a black-and-white image of the Moon.
The doctor comes back,
checks the lunar-like x-rays for white among the dark.
Nothing to fear in the curve.
Come back in sixth months.
A smile on your face,
a prayer to St. Jude, you come back home to me.
Hug needed still.
The strongest grip I’ve ever known,
a feeling that again fills my cells.
Poetry by Jonathan Fletcher
Jonathan Fletcher holds a Master of Fine Arts in Creative Writing from Columbia University School of the Arts. His work has been featured in numerous literary journals and magazines, and he has won or placed in various literary contests. A Pushcart Prize nominee, he won Northwestern University Press’s Drinking Gourd Chapbook Poetry Prize contest in 2023, for which he will have his debut chapbook, This is My Body, published in 2025. Currently, he serves as a Zoeglossia Fellow and lives in San Antonio, Texas.
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