Nancy Huxtable Mohr
SUBURBAN WOMAN LOSES TWO BREASTS IN RAINSTORM
Through a gauze of rain outside
my hospital window, disordered
flocks of crows fly so close
their mottled wings graze the pane.
I number wingbeats as prayers,
lay still, recall the ripple movement
of my outermost branches against
the pasture slope. A dread. A blood-beat.
White drip bags, machines, a mass
of raw tendrils on my empty chest.
My hand translates a long scar. Breasts
gone like birds on their earth-journeys.
Now, a demolition of male gaze. First, terror
of a kind but slowly waves of gratitude.
No more attempts to manipulate my life
to disaster. Instead, a livingness in the instant.
Nerve filaments twitch with discovery.
I ask for enough grace to be patient, to know
this storm will be followed by another
and another until I imagine mercy.