breasts

judy had her breast cut off this afternoon.

you have two breasts but one life.

Two breasts but only one life.

(did I say that already?)

Two, but one. And where else on the body

does the math's in halves, make sense?

Two legs can only mean you can pitch a fork

in the hay where the runaways slept. Or

run up the beautiful embankment on Iwo Jima

only to miss the arm that pulls the buddy from the sea.

But subtract one breast from two

and the woman thinks as the subspecies. Able

to play house, interbreed successfully, ride

next to you in the van to Gloria's for fresh

tomatoes and fish that, she says, migrate thru

the dreams she's had. The dreams where she

plays the waitress of daybreaks. She had hoped for

heavy yard blooms; a martingale perhaps for the

horses head she must be made to carry. She would blush

when her man of twelve years (never married)

would intimate how he missed them.

Them. The object of a verb. The antecedent to

a relative pronoun. One is what he picks a six pack of

at Kroger's/. One is where he has to be when his

parole officer calls. Them; in the Victoria's Secret 36C.  Yes

that them, in the wet tee shirt of liturgical sun downs.

Them of chestnut n*****s. Them of hallucinosis; of exaggerated gestures

and play. One: of the Jesus's you called upon to save you.

I shall forever miss the them departed.

Reviews

[Matching Socks]

Incredibly moving. So incredibly moving. Having stood by the side of my sister, aunt and cousin...
You broke it down into simple meaningful terms.

[olla]

a powerful piece.. again.. so many bits and pieces.. each a tasty appetizer for thoughts to savor while waiting for the meat..

[Ed Hart]

you, more than anyone, find the poem in everything...all you need is a pen and the strength to get up in the morning...and here, again, you peel back the foliage and show us the blossom,

[jacob erin-cilberto]

wow this is incredible...all about subtraction....but it's only physical...and we worry so much about physcial numbers, too much so...not enough about that one that means one survived...and one is still a whole person inside...and one is all we need.

[h d e rushin]

well said sir. Far too much is made of wholeness when wholeness is what you believe
not what you carry around.......dana