RIGHT SO yesterday I got a brief and polite email from someone naming themselves Ryan Cameron who wanted to know if there were questions I considered too personal for email. Sure, I replied, but that would depend on the context. What did he want to ask?

< I am apologizing to you in advance if you find the following statement to be offensive,or sexist> Ms. Healey - I would like to know more about your 34DD breasts.

I forwarded to everyone I thought would find this amusing, and responded with the information that, yes, a stranger asking to know more about my breasts was indeed too personal and offensive a question, and that I sincerely hoped he had not been targeting other women with this crap.

brown_betty: More about? Does he really imagine he's going to get a paragraph about their satiny softness or something?
karenhealey: You know, now I'm tempted to do an LJ post all about my breasts.
brown_betty: If you're looking for someone to talk you out of it, look elsewhere.

LO. I HAVE COMMITTED POETRY.

More About Them.

Basically, they're big.
They weigh and droop.
When I get up I wear a bra,
under my pyjamas. I can't type
with them dragging on the keyboard.

Underwire marks curve under each,
like thin smiles. There was a light brown bruise
on the right one, close to the sternum.
I bought better bras; it faded.
They cost a lot, good bras, and regardless,
my shoulders ache.

Around the areolae grow long black hairs.
In the shower, I tug them out
with wet fingers; the tweezers are lost.
The right one has a lump: it is benign.
It is benign.
It is benign.

In the dark and stupid hours, I roll the lump
against my thumb and see the cancer spread,
the doctor's office, my mother's face,
the funeral. People will say nice things.
I think: become a better person,
so that no one has to lie.

Did you not want to know that?
Too bad. You can't have them
separated from my life: my aches;
my routines; my fears;
my mother; my funeral;
the truthful things they'll say.
You can't have them.
They are mine.
They are mine.
They are mine.