Wait a Minute, I Have to Take Off My Bra
Betty Dobson, Editor
Darcelle Adams-Frank, Associate Editor
Published by Inkspotter Publishing at Smashwords
Copyright 2011 InkSpotter Publishing
Smashwords Edition, License Notes.
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Cover photograph copyright 2011 Robert R. Sanders
Foreword
Betty Dobson
Can you judge a book by its cover? Sometimes.
Can you judge this book by its cover? I think you can.
One of the main reasons for publishing this anthology is to celebrate something that is so distinctly female yet often treated with disrespect. Robert Sanders stunning photograph conveys that message with both style and substance. (A special thank you goes out to poet Shawn Aveningo for bringing the image to us in the first place.)
This book grew out of a conversation with one of my best friends, Darcelle Adams-Frank. After toying with few project ideas without ever finding one that fit, we finally sat down to brainstorm a complete and workable plan. We knew we wanted to publish an anthology and that we wanted to donate part of the proceeds to charity. We also decided we wanted something of relevance to women. Breasts—and breast cancer research—easily fit the bill.
We considered dozens of potential titles before settling on Wait a Minute, I Have to Take Off My Bra. As working women, we both knew the distinct pleasure of getting our bras off the moment we walked through the front door after a long day at the office.
In terms of promoting a charity, breast cancer research instantly resonated with me. I grew up with a keen awareness of breast cancer. My mother was diagnosed with the first of six benign tumours when she was thirty-five. I also appreciated how lucky she was.
In grade seven, I discovered a lump in my own breast. When I told my mother, she looked as if I’d just sucked the life out of her. Her face fell. And she whispered, “You’re too young.” In another stroke of luck, my lump turned out to be a cyst. No biopsy. No surgery. No fear of malignancy. Plus, I learned exactly what to look for in future self breast examinations. I knew what a lump really felt like.
I think it goes without saying that breast cancer has touched everyone’s life in one way or another. Based on that universality and judging by the early response to this anthology—to the mere fact of its impending publication—I have high hopes that we’ll reach a wide readership and raise lots of money for a worthy cause.
The Breast Cancer Society of Canada is our charity of choice, and we thank you for helping us support their efforts.
How to Buy a Bra When You Have Changed Weight
Jenni L. Ivins
My friend, who recently lost weight, just emailed to tell me that she bought—and was now strutting around in—a new bra. She wrote: “Sorry if I sound excited, but I am. Sad but true.” She was wondering how others who were losing poundage handled the female question of parts not staying where they were put.
I, too, was familiar with the problem and was relieved to hear that I wasn’t abnormal in this. I stopped mentioning the issue to my thinner friends, however, as they just looked at me pitifully and shook their heads. Not comforting at all when I needed reassurance.
I don’t know why breasts can’t just lie comfortably in their cups rather than bungee like a pair of tennis balls in tights when one moves. Not that they look like that when I stand naked in front of the mirror. Of course, I do stand with my shoulders well back at such times, and, since I’m usually about to step into the shower, I don’t have my glasses on, so my perspective might be affected by imagination and mood.
Unfortunately, the only way I found to resolve the peek-a-boo problem to which my friend referred was the same way that she did—by buying a newwww bra! {Said Price is Right style, please.}
However, this creates a new dilemma: how to explain the bumps in the dressing room when I am choosing said item of underwear. Pre weight changes, the ritual was to adjust the straps to my estimated size then lean forward, ensuring that the bra cupped my breasts before fastening the hooks and eyes. Now I also lift my arms a few times and move them from side to side. I jump up and down, my hands held high above my head. Then I throw in a few diaphragm expanding exercises that you may or may not recognise as the actions that go with “I must, I must, I must increase my bust.”
All of this exertion often leads to a bit of curtain bumping, huffing and puffing—and heightened facial colour when I leave the fitting room. But I leave feeling confident that my breasts will stay in their place and not venture out unexpectedly.
I relayed my experience to my friend, comforted by the knowledge that she would understand.
We should enjoy our new bras, stand proud, and feel secure as we strut with aplomb.
Pink Ribbons
Shawn Aveningo
One lump or two?
Ma’am….your coffee?
One lump or two?
Such an innocent question
uttered hundreds of times
in tea rooms, coffee houses,
restaurants, airplanes.
Today, those words
had the power
to bring her to her knees.
No amount of chamomile
or honey capable
of soothing her pain.
She was drowning
in a sea of sorrow,
fearful of what
tomorrow would bring.
How could she face
this new reflection,
scarred, disfigured?
What would she see
reflecting in his eyes?
He said he would always
love her, no matter what.
He said she would always
be beautiful to him,
but this....this
isn’t what crosses your
mind, vowing in
sickness and health.
Each day she’ll carry on,
with a stiff upper lip
and pink ribbons in her hair,
stuffing the prosthetic
into her bra, no longer
adorned with sheer lace.
She’ll march with an
army of women.
She’s grateful to be
among the living,
a survivor as she’s
now known. But she misses
her curves, even if sometimes
they sagged. She misses
the tingling of her nipples
when her husband held
her in his arms. She
misses feeling like a woman.
She misses feeling
whole.
Ma’am?
One lump or two?
She replied,
Oh, No Thank You.
No lumps for me.
34B
Mary MacGowan
I told my children the night before—
they paraded around the kitchen
with pointy paper cups
on their chests.
Now, beach towels
strategically placed over railings,
I slouch low in an Adirondack chair,
untie my top and let them go free.
My breasts and I follow the one
shot of sun that comes in through
tall white pines; my chair scrapes
as we skootch across the deck.
Sun and leaf-shadow
warm and cool them,
plumped and fondled
by every passing breeze.
No sense denying it:
someday I’ll be gone,
and two plastic bags
will sit atop dry rib bones.
Here I am, now, wondering
if thieves are stealing
a glimpse, and if I care,
and if I ever cared.
Silvery Fish
Sharon Burton
Sitting on my porch in the sunshine on a warm, soft afternoon, I read the letter in my hand again. It continues to say—and I’ve read it many times in the last ninety seconds—that the results of my mammogram are not normal. Specifically, my left breast is not playing nicely and needs to go back for additional testing. Such as an ultrasound, the letter says.
Ultrasound, I think. My left breast.
I read the letter again, in case I’m missing some important words, like “This Letter is a Mistake.” I read every word again, several times, and they’re all the same words in all the same order. Thoughts occur to me, the first of which is that running in circles and pulling out my hair like mad woman is a good idea. What I actually do, though, is cup my left breast in my hand and hold it against me, gently, the way I would a hurt child.
This is not good. That’s the next thought.
My mother died from breast cancer. I started annual mammograms several years ago, when I was thirty-six or thirty-eight years old, to catch bad things early. Until this moment, mammograms were my talisman against just this sort of result. My agreement with the universe was that I did what my mother didn’t do, thereby preventing the bad thing from happening to me. Cancer cells invaded my mother’s body like tiny silver fishes, darting from breasts to liver to bones, darting too fast to catch.
I might have fishes. In my left breast.
I want my breasts just as they were, in a generally matched, soft, squishy pair on my chest.
I can do without one or both, if I have to, I think. If it’s a choice between them or me, they can go. But losing one or both is suddenly a terrible idea. I want breasts, my breasts, just like last year, without fishes.
I’m afraid of my breasts.
I stand up, wobbling like a sailor trying to get her land legs, and go inside. I need to call the clinic and make an appointment. The letter includes a number to call, but it’s a menu number. Radiology or Silvery Fishes in Breasts are not options, even though I press seven to hear the menu again. Frustrated, I hang up. I’m gasping. I breathe, in and out. Calm, calm, I think. This is not an emergency. Yet. This is a phone call for an appointment. I can do this. Call back and press zero to get the operator. She can send me to Radiology.
This is how it starts.
With my mother, it was like this.
I make the appointment. A week from now. Only a week worries me.
I waited six weeks for the original appointment.
Now, suddenly, there are no breasts left to examine, and all the appointments are open? I think I’m on a special list now—or at least my left breast is.
I don’t want to be afraid for me.
In the bathroom, I take off my shirt and my bra. I look at myself in the mirror. I compare breasts: left, right, and left again. They look no different than this morning, pre-letter, post-shower. I poke and prod, looking for fishes or lumps…either one…both…but I feel nothing different. Nothing swimming or darting. They still hang gently, like soft water balloons.
My left breast, I think. Ultrasound.
This could be anything: a cyst, a nothing, a fish, a something. It’s the uncertainty, the wait until next week. I pull my bra and my shirt back on, gently placing my left breast in the lace cup.
Faded Rose Tattoo
Betty Dobson
she’s like her faded rose tattoo
youth’s sigil on her breast
paled from the centre
colour worn away
with the flesh
petals fallen
or plucked
in fits of love
<love me not>
her withered stem
bowed before time
and distended leaves
courted only by gravity
tempted by the blade
pruning and grafting
(winter’s harbinger)
like wiring the bud
for two more days’
worth of show, illusion