Pencil Test


In 1969, I tucked a pencil 
under a breast and when it failed 
to cling, I went braless. Brassieres 
uncoupled, and everywhere women 
waved them like flags, filled 
incinerators with nylon and lace.
Later I wore a nursing bra, flap 
agape, nipple pulsing while my baby 
sucked, and I wrote notes on what not 
to forget. One night the neighbor boys 
watched through tilted blinds, rubbed 
their crotches and spilled their own 
milk under a tree in the yard.
Years later when the Wonderbra arrived,
I tried it, felt cables and wire 
cantilevered against my skin 
to lift and point even the most 
desperate tissue. Today they tell me 
they need additional views of a routine 
mammogram. As the doctor pulls out 
the slides, some taken years earlier, 
I learn the history of my breasts.
I stare at the brilliant panels, and there it is, 
a transparent web and outlined 
in red pencil, the sinister cell, thick 
and alarming. As I press fingers 
to the circled spot, my worst 
fears settle there and flicker.


-first published in Pencil Test, chapbook, Cassandra Press: 2001