Her ******* were taken
from her legs and back.
Formed from her own body
by a stranger’s hands.
A brutal procedure, reconstruction.
Adding four more scars to
her body which has already carried
three lives besides her own
fading one.
I catch her reflection
in the bathroom mirror
fresh out of the shower.
Door left open
because her legs wobble
like a newborn foal’s.
A giraffe.
A gazelle.
A calf.
She looks like a sacrifice,
my mother.
Allowed to live a short while longer
in the face of the new death
sprouting in her brain.
Or perhaps
it has been festering there
a while.
She is sick of pink.
She still smooths lotion
over her hands and face.
Feels her prickly, bald scalp
with her soft palms.
She is soft all over now
where there used to be muscle.
Brown, toned arms,
shapely legs.
It stole from her
again
and again.
Inside that soft, tired body
a warrior spirit raged on,
but knew defeat
when she saw it
on the pink horizon.