James Lineberger

BREASTS

i have sucked on implants
and found
them not terribly
exciting because at least
in my experience
they were too how shall i say this
hard like wonderwoman
tits behind a shield beneath the skin
unnatural under my fingers
as well when i tentatively
caressed them here and there until she pressed her fingers
over mine and said harder harder
i don’t like them either

and i have sucked on nipples
that were just about
all that were left from the double destruction
a surgeon had wrought
when he went for
the cancer another lover suffered from and i have to tell you
of the two experiences
this one was far more erotic because i think
it was because
everything she gave up and everything he left behind
were entirely hers
nothing done out of vanity or cosmetic fashion
only for survival
only because there were no options
and when she turned away and said don’t look
i said please oh please

and i have done this
too have
heard the desperation in her voice as the woman
with the implants
begged me over the phone to come
sit with her
in the cancer ward at Saint Vincent’s
and this time
when i arrived and there wasn’t a soul else to visit her
i got down by the bed
and sucked on her breasts again
and she put her fingers in my hair and said there there
there there

Location:	Hell's Half Acre, North Carolina
Email:	jdline@vnet.net
Publications:	Stirring, etc.

- October 2002 - Conjugating Anatomies After the Flood Instruction Hey You Kids, Get That Dirty Bomb Off My Lawn! Oven-sun Bus Stop breasts Bread and Tulips A Son Born To A Family of Women variation on pollock's cathedral Leonardo’s Notebooks - Poetry by Current & Former Editors - Charming Jenna Sept. 10th the things we do for Kings must end sometime Song Leftovers I'm learning to love haiku Valet Parking at the Salvation Army Shark in Sheep’s Clothing - Stirring's Best From Year Three - Killing Cattle for Disease, Greeley, 1998 Dear Anna Body Parts for Art Hogs Loosed En Route to Slaughter Trying to Raise the Dead Groundhog Day