A July Afternoon at the Wharf

I remember envying the tourists,
carefree, riding the cable cars, delighting
in their crab cocktails and sourdough loaves,
but I was lucky too, winning-the-lottery lucky,
having just heard results of my PET scan,
after three days of not sleeping, barely eating,
delivered nonchalantly
by a young balding doctor in desert boots
who read me my fate off a scrap of paper he pulled from his white-coat pocket
as though he was a prescient fortune teller.
Blessedly my cancer had not spread further,
though I’d need chemo and radiation,
“the gold standard of treatment.”
He was on to his next patient,
before I could even hug him.
We couldn’t go home that July afternoon,
bubbling over with our newly minted hope
and headed for the Wharf.
The sun brighter, the sky bluer,
a scraggly street musician sang Motown on a keyboard. I stood boogying to Marvin Gaye.
Passersby were amused by the sixtyish woman dancing by herself, but I didn’t care.
When I sat down laughing,
my husband hugged me,
and we kissed on the green bench.