procedure in three parts
(published by rough cut press)
I. removal
On the day my breasts were removed, the sun hitchhiked up the sky. A web of orange red marigold. We stare at it quietly, trying not to disrupt our eyes. Some things are so beautiful, they burn. Two waiting rooms and then a curtain separating me from the other patients. A gown made of cotton, not paper. A bag for my belongings. My body asking questions caught behind my teeth. Shivering. This hospital, a country full of women. My surgeon draws on me. My eyes follow the black marker marking skin. Nurse named Laurel gracefully inserts an IV. Anesthesiologist injects what will feel like three glasses of wine. I ask what color. My consciousness drinks red.
II. pain
There are fourteen syllables in this pain. It is 5 pm traffic on interstate 95. There are lightning bolts made from microwaved needles trampolining off my skin, off a chest I haven’t met yet, that waits for me beneath bandages. This pain is a verb and a proper noun. This pain is a run-on sentence, and it won’t let me off the phone. This pain is reminding my body how alive it is.
III. recovery
At night, the body is chrysalis. Spelling weather patterns into the bedsheets made too warm by the summer heat. For the first time in a month and a half, I roll on to my side. My scar winces just a little and I ask it permission to remain. Curled. As though trying to fit myself, inside myself. My limbs are weak and uncertain now. But as I sleep, I dream of bodies against mine who don’t ask me what I am or even what I need. They do not tell me I am not enough of this or do not look the part. They just remain like screen doors protecting me. In the morning, I ache, I wish for more hours, for autumn to whisper its sixty-degree breath against my neck. I unfurl. Beside me, frost or snakeskin or the peeling remains of my scar guard repair liquid beside me and lifting off my skin. My body is a windowsill, peering out, wondering what is next.
