The Right Question

in the oncology clinic walk a hundred veterans  

the life they’ve lived draped on their shoulders — 

like a well-loved vintage coat, scuffmarks keeping the score  

— here to see doctors who try to explain  

why emaciated bodies are fat with inflating renegades  

that they cannot police 

perhaps because we are too big from having stuffed ourselves sick 

with burgers and ash and wine and bloody meat or 

maybe because we are too small to hold all our luck and  

misfortune overflows like wine from the chalice of pain 

why 

why 

why 

    the patients ask 

why me?  

the p-values say 

sometimes it is destined in your blood 

but otherwise it could be 

the kiss of the cigarette you held between your lips  

the salted fish your mother cooked every night 

the glass of beer you clinked last Friday with your mates 

the crispy charred bacon you love to death 

the golden summer sun that bronzed your lovely skin  

it is because you did not put your life on a diet 

but if life is meant to be lived,  

how do we outrun a bad diet? 

oh, we don’t? — auguries of death haemorrhage on paper 

no, the books aren’t wrong, the numbers don’t lie 

but they forgot to ask the right question: 

which do you want  

life or years?