Burdens

Morning of my surgery,

I wake and remember.

They loll back to my face for a kiss. They sting.

I cross my legs and they ellipse and ring.

I sit up and they brush against my stomach;

They puff and swell. Shaped like bells.

I have weight that can’t be lost altogether —

I have a chest that aches and breaks.

I don’t feel like I can run in fields, and I may well

Strike down my arms forever, for holding my breasts in place.

And so, I have made an appointment with markers and knives,

and I am nervous. I encounter

My mother in the hallway five a.m. gloom. We shock and smile! The car looks like a spaceship.

She says, You don’t look that big this morning

So I take out my breast in my hand (it lays flat after quivering

and submits to me like a pet)

And she says Okay, maybe you do.

But I’ve decided there are other things than bust:

Mind. Poems. Voice. Touch.

I fear for the way it feels to hug me.

Mama says, done everything despite that burden,

Hard to give up that burden?

I say, be perfect and have no excuses?

Be plastic?

Not for the hate of my breasts but for the love of my running legs, ballooning lungs, and inspired profile with straight posture,

I am going to do the least natural thing.

Watch me stand up straight

Look down, touch self, whisper,

It’s going to change forever please forgive me.