A Pound of Prevention

This morning I am trying a persona poem.  I am definitely not the speaker in the poem - and hope I never am - but I am expressing what I would probably feel in the speaker's situation.  The old saying "an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure" triggered a thought about how I would react if I lived as healthy of a life as I could and still came dowm with cancer, something that does happen to lots of  people.  (I hope I haven't robbed the poem of what little impact it may have had by explaining it too much.)

                                                                 A Pound of Prevention


                                                       I would trade all the anti-oxidants,
                                                       all the free range, hormone-less meat,
                                                       all the organic low fat, low sugar,
                                                       low taste granola bars and the green tea
                                                       tofu burgers, as well as the hours
                                                       spent pretzeled on yoga mats at dawn
                                                       or at the gym, squeezing out one more rep
                                                       of crunches or curls or squats or whatnots –
                                                       I would trade them all for one tiny pill
                                                       to stop the pain and banish the tumor
                                                       from my brain, for now I do feel the burn.