Laura E. Davis

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Somewhere in a medical waste container, in the place where they dispose of medical waste, inside a triple-wrapped baggy tied in knots, and appropriately labeled, are your breasts. They are nearly perfect, snow-globe round with small nipples. That they are filled with malignant tumors makes no difference to your breasts' many fans. Carcinogens don't shake their devotion. When the news gets out that your breasts were dumped in the ocean, your fans spearhead scuba diving missions to find them. They miss them, your breasts. The sweetheart swoop relinquishing beneath your neck. Breasts. Rucksacks of skin containing fat globules, mammary glands, and mutated cells, sloshing around the bottom of the sea. It takes decades to find them. Three hundred years, long after your death, one brave diver recovers them. He is pronounced a hero for saving your breasts and returning them to their former glory. He mounts them as his trophy. He mounts your breasts on his wall, and his home becomes a museum where people pay money to see your famous breasts. Your breasts on display, and the world pressing their noses against a window.

Laura E. Davis is the author of the chapbook Braiding the Storm (Finishing Line Press 2012). Her poems have appeared in Corium, Muzzle, iARTistas, and So to Speak, among others. The Founding Editor of Weave Magazine, she teaches poetry writing and translation in San Francisco, where she lives with her partner, Sal.