A Poem by Roz Goddard

morning of the diagnosis

a bird of prey has taken a white cat from
the garden. I’m standing in bare summer

stalks watching my life disappear.
I’m not the whole cat, parts of me

are filled with ice elsewhere
in the winter space.

The radio’s tuned to a fat sun
where no one’s allowed to be sad,

the presenter shines like polished glass.
the consultant will see you at 10.00

please bring a partner or friend
I’m trying to breathe into terror

as I’ve been taught, under the fear
my heart is a tender breaking voice,

you could lose all you love
I haven’t been able to cry

even when I think of the surgeon
holding a thin folder of stars

light grading down to dark, according to
histology, him washing his hands of me

Roz Goddard is a poet and teacher. She is a former poet laureate of Birmingham. She has taught poetry extensively in schools, prisons, libraries and for literature festivals. She is a poetry mentor for The Poetry Society. Her most recent collection, Lost City, was published by The Emma Press in 2020. Previous pamphlet collections are The Sopranos Sonnets and Other Poems (Nine Arches Press, 2010), which featured on BBC Radio 3’s The Verb, and Spill (Flarestack, 2018). She is currently training for ordination in the Triratna Buddhist Order.