Poem for the Breasts - Sharon Olds


Like other identical twins
They can be better told apart in adulthood
One is fast to wrinkle her brow, her brain, her quick intelligence
The other, dreams inside a constellation, freckles of Orion
They were born when I was thirteen
They rose up half out of my chest
Now they are forty, wise, generous
I am inside them, in a way, under them
Or I carry them
I was alive so long without them
I can’t say I envy them, though their feelings are almost my feelings
As with someone one deeply loves
They seem to me like a gift that I have to give
That boys were said to worship their categoriac being,
Almost starve for it, did not escape me.
And some men loved them the way one would want oneself to be loved
All year they have been calling to my husband,
Singing to him, like a pair of soaking sirens on a scaled rock,
They cannot believe he could leave them
It isn’t vanity
They themselves were made of promise
And so they believed in the word
Sometimes now I hold them a moment,
One in each hand, twin widows heavy with grief
They were a gift to me
And then they were ours
Like little nurslings of excitement and plenty
And now it is summer again, late summer
The very week he moved out
Didn’t he whisper to them, "Wait here for me one year"?
No he said, "God be with you. God by with you. God by,
For the rest of this life and for the long nothing."
And they do not know language. They are waiting for him.
My Christ, they are dumb. They do not even know they are mortal.
Sweet, I guess. Refreshing to live with.
Beings without the knowledge of death.
Creatures of ignorant suffering.