Belinda Subraman

Marcio Simnch

Deep Tissue

Flunking a breast exam
one week after womb removal
I get the call
that something’s showed up
and I go back to be
prodded, probed and sonographed.

The wand felt good
sliding over my warm gelled breasts.
As it bumped my nipple
I dared not look at its response.
Then “it” appeared,
was marked and printed
(at my request)
for me to take home:
my sideways valentine,
my heart shaped
fibroid melanoma,
so tired and hungry
lying there alone.

Treatment

Murderous soldiers:
micro slaughter
of harmful feeders
squatters in human juice,
aliens whose enemy
is time,
the force against
the bludgeoned door
holding a bandage
of day
against denial
of night.

The joke of radiation:
pissing out the glow,
hairs stranded
in the book of time,
hope to bake ourselves
forward,
to be alive,
to be tasty,
to be done.

The Joining

empty vessels
feeding on loss-
looking for someone
to fill them-
to feel them-
tapping into
floating souls
looking for direction
in the vastness
of unknowable space-
learning slowly over years
to finally know nothing
yet still assign meaning
to the momentary relief of love
we tether to posts of air

Being

…as rippled static
on a wind wakened lake
tending tiny life
that trusts our largeness

mistaking mirrors for people
big in the pants of time

finding the secret of grasping
is holding hands with ourselves

as we search our patterns
and cycles for sameness

looking for certainty
of just one thing

Belinda Subraman lives in Ruidoso, New Mexico. Her poetry has appeared in  Puerto del Sol, Main Street Rag, Big Bridge, Babel Fruit, mgversion2, Electica, and Social Justice to  name a few. Since 2005 she has been interviewing poets,writers, musicians and activists on her podcast called Belinda Subraman Presents / The Gypsy Art Show and on her blog.  She also does digital poetry films. She usually does tell people she’s also an RN. Her main site is www.belindasubraman.com