‘Chemo Refusal’ and Other Poetry by Golan Shahar

Chemo Refusal

Doctor’s gown off.
He looks again.
Goes tough, speaks plain:
“It’s back. Aggressive.
Don’t deny.
Without the chemo
you will die.”

The patient’s striking.
Coal-black hair.
A mouth on fire.
Some adults stare.

Married. Two kids
dressed with flair.
Teaches math.
Her children stare.

“When first discovered,
you declined.
I’m begging you
Do not go blind!”

She speaks, her voice
is soft, affirms—
her life. But only
on her terms.

“What are the odds
if I say yes?
They’re low. You know,
five years or less
of touch and breath,
of children growing,
the work I do,
that I adore.
I get the math.
My mind’s made up.
Thank you, doctor.
Say no more.”

One Plum

—a Petrarchan sonnet

You ask how much my patients mean to me?
She got under my skin—right from the start.
I watched her skin, her spine, her lungs and heart.
I followed her for decades, faithfully.

But then retirement came. With urgency.
I was about to set aside my art.
Life after death became my newest part.
No more long nights. No more emergency.

She came to see me one last time. She brought
A basket of fresh plums. This made me proud.
“I’m not allowed to take these, though.” With tears
She smiled and held them out. We both were caught.
I said: “I’ll take just one. That’s still allowed.”
I’ve kept that single plum through all these years.

Golan Shahar, Ph.D., is a professor of clinical-health psychology and public health at Ben-Gurion University of the Negev and an adjunct professor of psychiatry at Yale School of Medicine. His research examines stress, psychopathology, and mind–body processes. His creative writing, in both English and Hebrew, has appeared in On the Hill and Psychoanalytic Inquiry.