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This Becoming
Poetry by Elizabeth Szewczyk
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Excerpts
Errands
My mother couldn’t leave them,
my brother and sisters sick with
measles, chicken pox, or pneumonia.
She would give me the blue-inked paper
for the “healing,” tell me to ride
my green two wheeler
with plastic baskets to the Pharmacy, wait
for the white coat man behind
the counter to fill the bottles.
I always hoped the medicine
would be mixed, bottles poured
into another, measured, shaken, poured.
This gave me time to read Tiger Beat and
Seventeen, magazines mother called “trash.”
I loved that “trash,” my arms around covers
of David Cassidy or Paul McCartney,
chapped lips pressed on their plastic-coated faces,
my fingers smoothing their ink-jet hair, then
turning to the “fashion section,” imagining
my elastic-waist stretch pants
exchanged for tartan wool skirts
and sweaters that showed breasts.
After the medicine was bagged
and paid, I took one nickel
from the change to buy anything. Gum?
Candy? I measured bars for size,
wanting my mother’s money’s worth.
I could buy two Tootsie pops for a nickel
(chocolate and cherry), two for the price of one.
I dropped the medicine bags in my baskets,
began the ride home, feet pressing
pedals until my calves ached,
wind gusts blowing into my face,
chocolate bulging in my cheeks.
Here I come to save the day,
I sang, that means that
Mighty Mouse is on his way.
Mammogram Day
The waiting room is full of people watching
CNN tell of the president’s surplus plan,
Alex Rodriquez’ drug problem, economic
disasters. Waiting on a hard green corduroy
chair, the technician calls my name.
It’s been two years since my last
mammogram.
I know where I’m going.
The wallpaper shines with flowers and
posters, reminding yearly checkups. My face
reddens and my breath grows louder. I’m
one who falls behind the yearly.
I’ll get a “talking to.”
Change in here and go in there, the technician
says, not looking at my face. She is unaware
of my good luck diamond earrings.
I strip my blouse and unhook the bra.
There are two baskets of sheets
to choose from: white with small blue flowers,
and white with multi-colored flowers.
I choose the multi-colored. I’m going in
like a garden of flowers and breasts.
This is going to squeeze, she tells me, my
breasts smashed like balls run over by tires.
The x-ray siren howls.
Three more times and I’m wearing my blouse.
Now I wait. The films will turn into pancake
images, my fate pools of black and white circles.
Fifteen minutes later,
the Radiologist shakes my hand.
The film shines like it did two years
ago. I thank him, although I don’t know why.
Walking back into the waiting room,
a woman my age is crying, a nurse rubbing
her shoulder. The automatic door
opens, wind sweeps across my breasts.
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