Good Cancer

That’s what the urologist
called it.
As curable as it gets.

A hard spot,
like a calcification,
unyielding to the thumb.

The sonographer
adjusted the towels.
Her head tilted
as the image
glared to life
on the monitor.

They cut below the belt,
pulled it out like a bulb.

One is adequate.
Forty. Married. Two kids.
No prosthetic.

A little extra room.
The shape of a ghost.

*

The Madtom

I took my daughter
to the creek
with a bucket and a net.

Thick mud held
sparse pools.
I urged her
to scoop one.

The net came back with
tiny bluegill and shad fry —
refugees
of the retreating creek.

“Will they be okay?” she asked.
“No,” I said. “Probably not.”

We spotted a madtom
on a gravel bar.

Minnow-catfish.
Prehistoric tail
and menacing spines.

We lifted it gently
and placed it
with the others.

Walked back
to the car —
quiet.

*

Ashtray

My father smoked
when I was young.
Quit when it became clear
he only had so many years.

He used to keep
a round smoked-glass
ashtray on top
of the fridge.
Too high for anyone
but him at 6’2”
to reach.

A carton of Winstons beside it.
Him on the corded phone,
a cigarette in his fingers,
his forearm
propped against the fridge.

The ashtray bore the image of a
US Navy E2C Hawkeye.

It was always overflowing.

When I was six,
he took me fishing.
Was supposed to have quit.
Smoked the whole time.

I told my mother.
He never took me again.

*

Matt Lotti lives and writes in North Carolina. He holds a BA in English from Virginia Commonwealth University. His poems explore memory, mortality, and the natural world. This is his first publication.