I’ve had a number of friends and associates who’ve been impacted by breast cancer. One recent acquaintance blogged about the worry she feels about telling a man — who is finally worthy to know this information — about her radical mastectomy and her breast implants. This poem, originally titled: “He may not know how to communicate what he’s thinking in the appropriate words, but he knows the feeling he’s feeling,” reflects both sides of that dilemma.

She wonders,
as she looks under
her shirt,
how she’ll broach
the subject, fear and hurt
of having breasts poached,
when she stops the flirt,
and reveals,
sans boast,
what has been concealed.

What will her future man say?
Will he vanish away?
Thoughs like those
run rampant, and hold sway
through her mind today.

But suppose
the man already knows,
and doesn’t care
what the surgeon’s knife laid bare?
What if he just wants to have exposed
the heart that’s left under there?