Here on the cold examination table,
I miss the cradle of my bra.
Soon the radiologist will sink
a bright needle into my breast.
In the low afternoon light,
I envision a woman and a man
painted on a basilica’s ceiling,
she in a red robe, he in muted brown.
The doctor positions my body on the table—
the woman becomes my mother,
red gown illuminated
by the light of her dressing table,
and the man, my father waiting
for her in the blue plaster sky
that holds them.
Biopsy
Sally Bliumis-Dunn
| poetry
Sally Bliumis-Dunn’s poems have appeared in New Ohio Review, The Paris Review, Prairie Schooner, PLUME, Poetry London, The New York Times, PBS NewHour, Upstreet, The Writer’s Almanac, The Academy of American Poets’ Poem-a-Day, and Ted Kooser’s column, among others. Her books, Talking Underwater, and Second Skin, were published by Wind Publications in 2007 and 2009. Her chapbook, Galapagos Poems, was published by Kattywompus Press in 2016.