"The Day You Left // Mammogram"

"The Day You Left // Mammogram"

"The Day You Left // Mammogram"

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A weekly poem, read by the author.
April 6 2010 7:00 AM

"The Day You Left // Mammogram"

Click the arrow on the audio player to hear  Terri Witek read this poem. You can also download the recording or subscribe to Slate's Poetry Podcast on iTunes.
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In pictures, each floats the sky alone,
its surface marked by steri-strips:
a mole becomes a knob-headed pin,
the scars where miners have gone in, blurred Xs.
By now the vast canals, some silted shut,
seem stonily immune to probes
pinging home faint discomforts.
So we're relieved both worlds include
only the grayish skies they drift through
and just one cupola or darkened hut.
These last, by signaling each other,
can gather, as the great head of Buddha
does from his amazing topknot,
all tender, contradictory feelings.

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Terri Witek's most recent book of poems is Exit Island. She holds the Sullivan Chair in creative writing at Stetson University.