Amazon

• A tentative exploration of a woman's experience with cancer
• "it begins"


  Question of origin, invisible beginning of disease. Use of enjambment in the first section creates flow, no isolated moment.
• "leave the surgery and walk into her new world, so startlingly the same" 


  Epitomises continuity and change, reentering everyday life but altered.
• "dustbins flowering"


  Paradoxical metaphor - jumbled perspective.
• "redding past as if nothing has happened"


  Continuity of outside world whilst her life has drastically changed, creates isolation and singularity.
• "she's all the way back now/her life fitting about her/like old clothes pulled on from the changing room floor"


  Completion, comforting image about mundane continuities in life.
• "the invisible twin she rises to touch"


  Emphasises permanent changes despite her life continuing. Lasting impact of the illness.
• "able to draw her bow further and deeper than other women" 


  Closing image, positive. Acceptance of the change embraced through continuing of life.