Perhaps in time, I won’t think
about my breasts. Soft robins
of flesh once above my waist.
Each spring, they would spread
flat on the machine. Wings
stretched against a metal cloud.
I sucked a breath, a whir,
syllabled a prayer, a doctor smiled–
No cancer. But not this year.
Cut from their fleshy nest, they left
nothing but bare branches, radial
lines scraped clean. Now, I move
from one moment into the next,
and into the one after. Breathing.
Their memory a day-flying thing.
Now, I am safer outdoors, testing
the wild. The open, round hills.
The chance of living around me.
Published in Cider Press Review, Volume 22, Issue 3.
Nancy Huxtable Mohr has a B.A. from Cornell University and is currently in independent poetry study at Stanford University. She has taught for fifteen years as a member of California Poets in the Schools. She has one book of poetry, The Well published by Butternut Press. NancyHuxtableMohr.org.
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