Poem for My Flat Chest

In keeping with my recent posts on whether or not to reconstruct/replace one's breasts after a mastectomy, I offer one of my poems:

Double Amputee

I have looked this way
before–
flat-chested, pencil-thin

when I was ten

Strange it is to seem
a sexless child
again

(Too bad about
the graying hair
and slightly sagging chin)

(Excerpted from Fine Black LIines (c) 1993, 2003 Lois Tschetter Hjelmstad)