PERMISSION

by Jennifer Weiss

Every Tuesday

between the blood draw

and chemotherapy

I buy mochas

in the hospital lobby

and carry them upstairs

to the waiting room

where we nurse them

some weeks hot

some weeks iced

and whisper and huddle

over family photos

on my phone

until they summon her.

I tell the barista

“No whipped cream.”

If I have it once

I will always want it.

Mom is in her eighties.

At each visit

to the doctor

the cancer center

she extracts thrawn feet

from soft shoes

before tottering

on the scale, peering

at the shrinking result.

When will she give

herself permission

to keep her shoes on?

Jennifer Weiss grew up in rural New Jersey. Her poetry appears in the North Carolina Literary Review, Kakalak, Pinesong, Jackdaw Review and Qu Literary Magazine. She was the winner of the 2022 NC State Poetry Contest. A lawyer and former state legislator, she volunteers in a Title I elementary school and is passionate about reading aloud to children.