Support and Coping with Cancer   /   Creative Inspiration

Lifting My Shirt

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Patricia Fontaine
Last Modified: March 15, 2004

This morning
two weeks after surgery,
the utter absence of my breast
shouts silence
after all the frantic months
of lifting up my shirt.

At 3, I see the oncologist,
the incision is healing well,
how nicely it curves to my armpit,
then she tells me
it's not the most
cosmetic
scar she's seen.

I hasten down my shirt.
Ugly is sudden.
She asks if I have emotional needs
but they have long since fled,
snapping the skinny ligature
binding me to the leavings of
my gone,
bountiful breast.

At home I try to plant
but end up watching spiders
wrap and suck their prey
in every outside corner.
I want to tear the webs,
snip the silken coffins,
give the prey
that blundered in
their unexpected freedom.

I go before the mirror
lift my shirt again,
It's the hundredth time
I've lifted up my shirt
but tonight I am sick
I am sick
like my first view after surgery,
the giant wad of gauze
parting slowly from
the fresh, red,
impossible line
illogically flush with my ribs,
the sacred site of a
razed and holy place,
to which I must concede.

In my innocence,
in my shock
I place my palm
on what is healing
tell my single breast
I'm sorry. I love you.
You are still
a prayer.