Orbited by great minds such as Molière and Racine,

Louis XIV was so central he was called the Sun King,

his absolutist reign forgiven because like the sun,

he was deemed essential. I have a hard time knowing

what is essential. As when one stares too long at the sun,

and then sees the bluish white corona of it when one’s eyes

are closed, I saw the tumor in my brain the way it was 

on the MRI scan. I simply needed to close my eyes.

Unlike the scare about the recurrent foot tumor,

when doctors offered repeatedly to chop off my foot,

no one would satisfy my request my head be chopped off.

I was in a dense forest, the canopy so interwoven

the sun was dark. No chalk to hatch my way, I went

round and around. Louis XIV made his noblemen 

circle the grounds at Versailles, collecting with each

lap, a golden flower pin. Whatever the King said

was necessary became necessary. I circled and circled

in the forest of my anxiety without a golden pin,

without any reward. To sleep was to enter this forest

where the sun was dark but each time I closed my eyes

I saw not the sun’s corona but the fuzzy-edged tumor.

There was no grandeur associated with this sun.

There was nothing orbiting it, drawn by its power.

The forest was dark. I was nowhere to be found.