My left breast, I tell the nurse on the phone.

One lump hard, not unlike the small stones

my son treasures into his pockets

 

while hiking. The other soft. The earth is

an oblate spheroid. I am reminded of this during

distance learning that has become

 

the epicenter of our house. It’s easier to recall

facts when they are chained to an experience.

I download a star chat to find

 

Andromeda after the clinician tells me there’s

a backlog of woman that have been waiting

months for imaging. I am placed at

 

the end of this invisible line. On Mother’s Day,

we are without a grave or marker to visit,

so, we speak little of the tumor that grew

 

in her brain, instead pile stones for a

slingshot, measure the arc of each fling.

I do not know if it was coded,

 

or chemical, or how long my mother carried the spec

before it swelled and barbed. I snap tendrils

that wound our wrought iron fence,

 

brittled during years of direct sun. We call this

cleanup a reclamation, forgetful that we are

borrowing this space.

 

I’m high risk, I tell the nurse as she logs

my specifications. Height. Weight.

The history that swims in my blood.

 

I use my mother’s maiden name as password.

She reads it back slowly, as if pulling the

margins of each letter clean.