A Cancer Survivor’s Tikkun Olam

Oct 12, 2026, 11:00 PM

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Doctor Esty

There is plenty of snow on the ginkos, the sycamores
& our Pittsburgh hills;
ice chunks line the holes in the streets

But not enough to deter my two aged
lady friends, having bundled themselves into furs,
leaning on canes, off with me to meet the brave cancer survivor from Israel,

herself young, blonde, articulate. Herself a distinguished researcher,
an engineer who investigates possibilities,

each one a bright hard pellet of silicone she aims into suffering flesh.

Thousands of years of human selection and here she is,
a matter-of-fact Israeli, a Sabra, she tells us:

Father Roumanian, Mother from Turkey, both of them Sephardic,
and I think of how they got out in time, the parents,

and all those like them who did not. She works very hard, their daughter;

obsessed with helping the world find the path to cure cancer.

About the Author

Judith R. Robinson is a visual artist, an editor, teacher, fiction writer and poet. She has been published in numerous magazines, newspapers and anthologies. She has taught and conducted workshops for the Pittsburgh Public Schools, Winchester- Thurston School and Allegheny Community College. She currently teaches poetry for Osher at Carnegie-Mellon University and the University of Pittsburgh.