The Unexpected Applicability of J. Alfred Prufrock to a Memory of Chemotherapy

The other day I thought of a line from the great T.S. Eliot poem (I grow old... I grow old.../ I shall wear the bottoms of my trousers rolled), and so went to my old Norton Anthology to check out the text.  And saw this there:

But though I have wept and fasted, wept and prayed,

Though I have seen my head (grown slightly bald) brought in upon a platter,

I am not a prophet--and here's no great matter;

I have seen the moment of my greatness flicker, 

And I have seen the eternal Footman hold my coat, and snicker,

And in short, I was afraid.

In short, I was afraid.  It's the starkness of this, the bare admission.  And the obliquely apropos reference to baldness...

Nothing else to say about it, really.  It just caught my eye and felt right.