I. 

My dog went into surgery today, 

the living one. My mom’s scans came back benign. 

I find myself trying not to write 

about Women, searching 

for the lumpier foundlings in my chest and feeling altogether 

too fibrous. A sack of fat, 

a pocket of pus. I’ve gained weight 

and my overcoat covers me, I am habitual 

at removal. I cut off 

taffy friends, blunt ends 

at my hairdressers’ hesitation, and then 

the Women - 

 

II. 

It’s like the sugar cane mounds in Ipojuca, swelling 

from the earth. Stoic hills hacked 

down by machete. An annual mastectomy. 

the stalks laid out like sinews or something 

in that vein. Some people think I harvest love 

and I’m worried 

they’re right.

 

III. 

Kyky had six fingers. She used to 

tie my shoes (bunny-bunny-through-the-loop)

 our own Barnum and Bailey’s spectacle of wood chips

 with impish kindergarteners forming the ring.

 She was so cheerful about the thing and let me hold 

the bump to carpool. That sweet, 

sebaceous thumb. I didn’t hear the metal clang 

when it popped against the monkey bars. 

We talk less than 

we did once. 

​

IV. 

The day I got the scar splitting my kneepit, 

Kyleigh’s mom took off work to see me in the PACU

 with a baby blue stuffed elephant. I remember 

the anesthetic like some giddy candy high and I feel

 behind my leg for the imprint. The mass, excised; 

the infection, discharged. I guess the steeper hill 

to climb is this subdermal, 

grief at large, protruding. 

I never see it. 

 

We stay in touch.