First Sight of Reconstruction
By Margaret A. Robinson

We were chatting in the upstairs hall
when my girlfriend pulled up her shirt
to show her scarred chest, an inserted ball
riding high like a blank balloon—taut—

while the real breast drooped, slung
low from sternum and rib, easy
as a summer hammock nature had hung,
the tan nipple soft yet alert. Queasy

when she made me poke the fake
one, I awkwardly blurted, Hard as a rock.
She said, No sense, no feeling. They make
a sack, pump in salt water. I half coughed

a snorted laugh. The thing with claws, a dreaded
choice: Would you like emptiness? or lead.

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