My Mother's Breast

Sadly, this medicine will not heal me.
Brave as I might be, liberation comes from the surrender.

I am bereft at the twilight of another battle
and my breast is no longer round and full as it was when I offered it
to all of my babies,

but instead I am left with a concave pocket
into which radiation and chemicals flow.

I put up my fists
and will not flinch
as they remove the damage.

These cells will go into hiding
in my lungs or liver.

In thirty years or so, open up the chest full of the serpents
and let them take this body while I depart into nothing.