Boobs by Ruth Daniell

Author:Ruth Daniell
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781987915273
Publisher: Caitlin Press
Published: 2016-10-14T16:00:00+00:00

Breasts

Susan Glickman

I hated them from the start —

they burned, they poked,

two scoops of humiliation

disgracing my unused chest.

I used to lie on my stomach praying

“Please don’t grow” but they did,

faster than anyone else’s,

sending me back to school hunched,

clutching books between belly and chin.

Unbalanced in ballet, red-faced at gym, shy

in the showers —

shy everywhere, in fact, behind those twin announcements

that I was now a public target — fair game

to the rude boys smoking behind the school,

street-corner wankers,

someone’s drunk uncle at a wedding,

someone’s father.

They liked them, the men, and let me know it.

This did not help.

Most were rough, grabbing handfuls

as though breasts were just stuff, some stuff

they wanted, nothing to do with me.

Others were so serious, mammary scholars, all technique

and sincerity. Nipple-flickers. Lickers.

Ticklers.

So what.

The things just hung there, in my way,

flopping when I ran, aching every month,

useless. Until the babies came and then

such sweetness! I had never known such sweetness

as when my infants sucked and I could feel the milk

flowing down in little sparks as though it were pure

electricity, a current between us, and even my babies hummed

they were so happy and they stroked

my breasts.

And now I’m afraid

because they’ve outlasted their purpose,

and my friends are dying and it starts, here, in the breasts,

the milk curdled, sour, one spark

then a conflagration

and maybe they won’t forgive me all those years

I hated them. Maybe they don’t want to plough ahead

into years when no one leers or grabs;

years when everyone looks away.

Maybe they needed all that attention:

it kept them glossy and sleek, fat and purring

like ceremonial cats guarding the entrance

to an Egyptian tomb:

the right one named “Life,”

the left one “Death.”

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.