Refrain

Long piano player fingers 
and large pencil eraser nipples 
Perfect parts on an aging body

The rest of my breasts too small
to satisfy society’s C-cup criterion
and men’s double-D standard

They say size and shape don’t matter
Yet spend millions a year
on big tits and tight butts

And I bought the measuring tape
if not the magazines
Kept my B-for-embarrassed shapes overlooked

and loosely swathed behind the lie of modesty
Until a breast biopsy issued
a mutilation memorandum

The severed milk ducts scripting
atypical cell analysis
across paper-thin samples of flesh

that authored guilt for bygone disregard
For which I compensate
with comfort, cuddles, confessions

Christen the recipients like precious pets
now named Boo-Boo and Bambette
I take them public

Proud in tight lycra tops
of their identical twin-ness
Before they turn fraternal

The harbinger lump I’ll perhaps find
When long piano player fingers
perform their monthly preludes

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About the Author

Ellaraine Lockie is widely published and awarded as a poet, nonfiction book author and essayist. Her fourteenth chapbook, Sex and Other Slapsticks, was recently released from Presa Press. Earlier collections have won Poetry Forum’s Chapbook Contest Prize, San Gabriel Valley Poetry Festival Chapbook Competition, Encircle Publications Chapbook Contest, Best Individual Poetry Collection Award from Purple Patch magazine in England, and The Aurorean’s Chapbook Choice Award. She also teaches writing workshops and serves as Poetry Editor for the lifestyles magazine, LILIPOH.

Ellaraine Lockie
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