Magazine cover with lemonade and berries
Mouth closed, a fist.
Barely breathing, lazy as a cliché:
“it knocked the wind right out of my lungs”—
“Hold your breath. Breathe”
repeated during a mammogram
as my breast is compressed, stretched.
the act of breathing in
air, oxygen
during a guided meditation for a poetry workshop:
poems,
pomegranates,
peonies.
my breasts are pomegranates.
left breast stains my memory
like neon pink lettering on a yellow ghost
haunting a blue Ms. Pac Man machine.
Hands shaking, tremble
as I turn the pages of Good Housekeeping magazine
and wait for my mammogram results
in a waiting area, pristine,
with a mid-century modern table holding Real Simple,
Better Homes and Gardens, and Martha Stewart Living
with a picture of lemonade and berries.
I look out a picture window
so no one will see the fear in my eyes
or the tears
as I wait for an ultrasound tech
in a hot pink lab coat to come in and call my name,
holding a white paper saying benign or malignant
or no paper at all,
calling me back for an ultrasound instead,
my name more ominous than paper,
doctor standing tall behind me
to tell me the results.
At least, that’s how the tech explained it would happen to me
if the mammogram showed anything,
but I don’t have to travel that path.
All the time I’m barely breathing behind my mask
never taking a deep breath,
never inhaling,
not even breathing with mouth hanging open.
It’s like I’m trying to suffocate myself.
hold your self.
“hold your breath
breathe”
as my skin is smashed,
machine crush.
a plastic square squeaks, presses down
like I’m a pancake in a factory.
inhale and exhale,
count to five, count to three.
Breathe!
a phantom singed slashed burned,
scraped into a metal can.
my left breast like a pomegranate
stains my memory.
phantom pain,
nerve endings screaming at me
at the top of their lungs, wailing
for my left breast and my lymph nodes.
my chest wall itching the hell
out of me,
desperately scratching,
so desperate to end this itching
I’d pick up the dull edge of a butter knife
to end it.
nothing there to scratch
but a hard wall so I tap it.
I tap my mastectomy scar red as pomegranates.
I tap dance across it
like my fingertips are Fred Astaire,
tapping out a heartbeat.
My heart beats under my scar
even when I’m barely breathing
with mouth closed,
with nose not pulling in any air.
I should be grateful for breaths
since that one time I was choked,
my rapist’s hands round my neck
but to me,
it’s too much trouble to breathe.
I’d rather fantasize about the dull edge of a knife
scraping my chest wall,
my nerve endings screaming at me
‘cause nothing’s attached,
loose as threads hanging from a threadbare sweater
I pull at the strings,
hoping my sweater doesn’t unravel.
I scratch at my nerve endings,
hoping my chest doesn’t catch fire,
hoping my scar doesn’t tear open,
hoping I can keep my gray heartbeat
tucked safely under my scar,
hoping my fingernails don’t tear my heart
out of my chest wall.
the more I scratch,
the redder my chest
like an ant hill or an orange leaf.
maybe I can scratch my chest with the brittle end
of an autumn leaf,
or maybe if I scratch hard enough,
my stomach will start to bulge
like a balloon under a brick wall
supported by pillows.
The bricks, red, ready
to tumble down at any moment.
I exhale, relieved that my chest is falling from me
and I no longer have to breathe.
I write these lines in the sand, and the waves wash them away
the full moon is an ovary pearl
cradled in the hands at the ends of my Fallopian tubes
the bald moon is a white pearl
floating like a dead man in the Gulf of Mexico,
swallowed by a bloody-mouthed shark
who’s hungry, not realizing it’s a hard pebble he can’t chew
the round moon is a baby from my ovary.
she dips in and out of the Gulf to cleanse herself,
not knowing she’ll never get clean of the blood from my womb,
not knowing the world wants to chew her up like a little white pill,
swallow her whole, moonbeams shooting from all their mouths.
Lori Lasseter Hamilton is a 52-year-old breast cancer survivor and rape survivor. She graduated from the University of Alabama at Birmingham in 1998 with a bachelor of arts in journalism and a minor in English. She is a medical records clerk for a local hospital. Lori is a member of Sister City Connection, a collective of women spoken word artists, poets, and storytellers in her hometown of Birmingham, Alabama. Some of her poems have appeared in Glass: A Journal of Poetry, The Stray Branch, Poetry Super Highway, Global Poemic, Synkroniciti Magazine, Steel Toe Review, Birmingham Arts Journal, SWWIM, and Avant Appal[achia]. Lori has three poetry chapbooks, and her fourth chapbook, limo casket, is forthcoming from Voice Lux Press in 2023.