Amber Shockley
The Surgeon Apologizes That He Must Take Her Breast
My mother's knuckles always
look like they're ready to burst
forth from the skin, too wide
and bulging for birth,
like a newborn's bare bottom.
My mother, born breach,
now folds her hands in her
lap, the long fingers delicate
in the bent way a tall girl
tries to be delicate, and the surgeon
speaks to her as he would a girl, whose
breasts are blooming in reverse.