There was something defiant in your delivery:
‘I’ve got a huge bloody carcinoma
of the stomach -
Inoperable they tell me.’

But there was relief too –
I know how much you dreaded
being left…

‘Take care of your mother, for me.
Promise? ’

I didn’t cry.
I didn’t need to.
I just held your hand
and looked gravely into your green eyes.

I remember noticing
your moustache -
every defiant ginger hair of it.

‘He loves that moustache’ -
Mum used to say.

It disappeared soon after -
along with the rest of your hair
and the hale and hearty
proportions
of your Henry the Eighth body.

Chemotherapy does that.

You were ridiculously small
when you finally died.

Alison Cassidy

http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/defiance-4/