Lumpectomy
They cut a lump from me
– a bully, too big for its boots
they said, but harmless –
and then pulled the wound’s edges in like purse strings,
closed its dusky mouth to silence it,
but still it speaks – even faded,
this scar will always tell a story.
I’m So Sorry
Three small words of confirmation,
words with the recoil of tensioned wire.
A report as they sever the air.
That’s him there, still as this pool of silence we founder in.
Each second seems taut, long and strung between here
and before
and life is re-written in the beat of a heart,
in the space without his,
this moment truer than wire breaking’s song.
Kristen Roberts is a stay-home mum and poet from Footscray in Melbourne. She has had poetry published in Australian journals and anthologies including Quadrant, Verandah, Australian Love Poems 2013 and page seventeen, and has won the page seventeen and ACT Writers Centre poetry competitions. She’s still working towards the dream of having her own collection published.