Love Poem with Tumor:
A Translabyrinthine Approach
to a Large Cystic Vestibular Schwannoma

for Devon

Katie Manning

Instead of “The Twelve Days of Christmas,” you send
Twelve Days of Post-Op into the cloud: painpainpain
and naps, drugs you’d rather avoid, doing stuff
you shouldn’t, pissing off your family—God,
I love telehealth! You note that your face is lopsided,
but you’re not sweating this one at all, not worried
much about your lack of concentration. I try
to picture your lopsided face, but what I conjure
is the photo I took several summers ago: you
at a shady table outside of the chocolate house
in Santa Fe, taking the first bite of a handmade
truffle, looking transcendent—or maybe erotic—
either way, you’re full of concentration, symmetry,
and light. I’d walk many miles through winding
paths for prayer or muck about a twisted map
with nothing but dead-ends to bring you that day
again, but here we are: stuck in this reality where
tumors bear absurd Muppet-sounding names but
are still just “tumors,” and “translabyrinthine approach”
does not mean a rockstar in tights will appear if you
say the right words, but this procedure description
includes “large exposure” and “nerve stimulation,”
so let’s say those salacious words and laugh together
whenever you’re ready to laugh. From the other
corner of the country, I’m sending a partridge,
an owl, a whole house of chocolate, and for good
measure, every prayer to every God and goblin king.