I used to sit in the hole
in our tire swing.
When the rope rotted, Papa and I

drove to a graveyard of old tires
and heaved it, re-tread flying.
Driving home past the row

of No Smoking signs,
he said, One match could spark
the whole place. Like the fire pit

in Turkmenistan, two hundred feet wide
burning since 1971 when geologists,
digging for natural gas

caused a cave-in, tossed in a match
to burn it off. A big whoosh!
sent them running.

On the mammogram,
a star-white hole against black,
the size of a pea.

Don’t worry, they soothe,
it’s probably nothing.
But that nothing is something,

a tumor absorbing my light.
And I want nothing
where that something is.