The OR staff sings “Happy Birthday”
as I’m wheeled in for the mastectomy.
I shift, amidst their bustling hands
& well-wishes, from stretcher to table.
Centered atop the heated air pillow,
I ease into the rhythm of pulsing
compression sleeves around my calves
& close my eyes to the ring of white
lights overhead. A voice says breathe
& I breathe. Sweet nitrous oxide fills
my head & I sink into chemical whirl,
forget everything beyond myself—
—I wake with pain meds pumping in
my blood, bound chest aching, draining
bright red to a plastic bulb. Propped
in a private room with a river view,
chatting with my husband—propofol
euphoria surging—I feel injured, yet
invincible, as after I bore our son.
Two actor friends bring a cupcake &
candle & sing—show-tune style,
all vibrato & jazz hands—then,
with a tiny puff & cerulean wish,
I change the fire to smoke.
–
Melissa Joplin Higley is the author of First Father (Bottlecap Press, 2023). Her poems appear in Anti-Heroin Chic, Feral, MER, Sleet Magazine, Right Hand Pointing, The Night Heron Barks, Writer’s Digest, and elsewhere. She holds an MFA from Sarah Lawrence College and co-facilitates the Poetry Craft Collective. She lives in Mamaroneck, NY, with her family and four tuxedo cats.