Her headaches kept coming,
returned regularly, every morning
for a month, then stopped. She thought
they might be migraines,
did not know what caused them,
thought there could be a tumor,
but an aneurysm worried her
most. She did not know
what one was, what one felt
like, or what one did
other than dictate death,
but she did know
she did not want
to find out, avoided doctors or
Wikipedia. Instead, she worried
where she would be found
and by whom, wore simple clothing,
modest, at all times,
and did not take showers
when the headaches hit
in case she collapsed. She worried
how her hands and arms would be
angled, which way her feet would
splay, whether or not a bit of blood
would trickle from her nose, darken
enough to reflect the radio’s reporting
on someone’s sudden death
somewhere else.