Ode to My Breasts
I have no memory of the buds, the hard fists
of hormones hauling you up not unlike
the earth moved by velvety voles.
Warm friends, I underestimated you.
You grew out of sinewy muscle and fat,
that dirty word, that dense tissue
why they call you now to annual auditions
for which I hope you never get the role.
How often I hid you under sweatshirts, bound
you inside my leotard. When the first man
let his mouth linger on your soft edges,
I listened to your song for the first time.
And when you hardened like stones after childbirth,
I cursed you until I saw how my babies
relied on your rich milk, creamy and unrelenting.
For years you overflowed, spilled
into their hungry mouths without ever taking a bow.
Now that they drink from a carton and forage
for love in the thick forest of adolescence,
you are not to be pitied. You may feel obsolete,
but I still adore your sensual shape –
the way you yearn to be touched, suffer
the smallest let down when an infant draws near.
Sonya Schneider is a Northwest poet and playwright. Her poetry can be found or is forthcoming in 3Elements Review, B O D Y, Catamaran Literary Reader, SWWIM, ONE ART, Mom Egg Review, Eunoia Review and West Trestle Review, among others. She was a finalist for Naugatuck River Review’s Narrative Poetry Contest and for New Letters Patricia Cleary Miller Award for Poetry. A graduate of Stanford University and Pacific University’s MFA in Poetry, she is working on her first collection.