by Elizabeth Fogle
Breast Reconstruction and Other Bedtime Stories
By graduated increments,
my body makes room
in saline and scar tissue
and the slow geometry
of waiting as nerves spark
in vague alarm, something
like déjà vu as the plastic
expander folds, wedged
between muscle and bone,
mimicking a flightless wing
built out of snow shovels
and tucked all wrong.
As I chase sleep
on my preferred side,
I remember the day
after I got braces
and a girls’ lock-in
at the Methodist church
where we were all
jelly bracelets and ponytails
and the urge to fit in
as we sat in a circle,
slices of pizza
on paper plates.
My mouth filled with gravel
and broken glass until I gave up,
went to my sleeping bag
and watched the ceiling fan
turn slow, reflected
in the waxed linoleum floor
between the unfamiliar rustling
of other girls whose names
I would forget as soon as
we all changed schools.
I wonder how many of them
have cancer now like me.
One of the one in eight
or seven depending on where
you get your statistics.
Are they awake now, too,
skin taut under their night clothes
as they wait for morning,
a clock with no hands,
just the noise of cells
knitting into other cells,
a slow measure of
what skin will tolerate?
Poet Elizabeth Fogle (she/her) writes poems that look for quiet corners in loud rooms. When she’s not chasing words, she’s probably chasing coffee. Originally from North Carolina, she currently teaches literature and writing at Penn State Erie and lives in Western Pennsylvania, where the landscape and her small family often inspire her work. She’s had work published over the years in Nimrod, Harpur Palate, The Tusculum Review, and Phoebe among others.
Artist Serge Lecomte (he/him) was born in Belgium in 1946. He came to the States where he spent his teens in South Philly and then Brooklyn. After graduating from Tilden H. S. he joined the Medical Corps in the Air Force. He earned an MA and Ph.D. from Vanderbilt University in Russian Literature with a minor in French Literature. He worked as a Green Beret language instructor at Fort Bragg, NC from 1975-78. In 1988 he received a B.A. from the University of Alaska Fairbanks in Spanish Literature. He worked as a language teacher at the University of Alaska (1978-1997). He worked as a house builder, pipe-fitter, orderly in a hospital, gardener, landscaper, driller for an assaying company, bartender and painter. You can find more of his work on his website: https://sergelecomte.weebly.co/.
Gulf Stream Magazine 