Where was it hiding, this malignancy,
this cylindrical core of disease?
Was it in some dense breast tissue cluster
a tangle of glands masking its
perineural invasion?
What is it doing now, in its home
beneath my skin?
Rapidly growing she says and
I imagine cells, tripping over themseves to
get somewhere.
Why have they settled in my body?
I glance across the desk at the doctor
drawing pictures. I don’t want to know
my options. My niece could do better
than these crayon sketches,
a breast with a line across it,
a chest barren on one side and next to it
as though suspended in air, a cone.
She labels them technical sounding words
but truthfully, they all spell slice,
lumpectomy, mastectomy, breast reconstruction.
She tells me You’re lucky,
there’s nothing in your lymph nodes.
I know better now than to jump
at any good news.
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