Abnormal cells divide and reproduce,
and replicate again without an end.
They multiply amok in mad abuse
mitotic and chaotic, and so bend
ideas of potent immortality,
they take the twisted shape appropriate
to teeming crowded cruel calamity,
like maggots convoluting in a pit.

How many minds have sought an end to death?
How many scientists, philosophers
and prophets, too, have acted like it’s good
to live forever, ever drawing breath
and with that ever growing? Let the curse
of cancer give us death best understood.