I had a mastectomy, myself. Then I'm left alone for a while, bound and blanketed, that one breast with its centerpiece of crinkled brown staring down at me from the silvery lights, blinking when I shift. I love my breasts. I love yours, too. I cup them, the breasts of the women of the world, with great fondness, in celebration.
Breasts are home, they are unearned kindness, they are a small mercy in a cruel hour.
I love the history of women's clothes, thousands of years of clothes to disguise the waist, cover the bottom, drape the thighs, hide the ankles and push the breasts up and out into the world, mounds of skin mocking the curtains of fabric below. I have white and pink and black and blue bras, lacy and smooth bras. My daughter wears bras now. She was a little shocked when we went shopping for the first one, shocked in that conservative adolescent way at the mundane attitudes of adults to all she still finds new. All these bras and undies and unknown contraptions of lace and elastic hanging in public, available in unexpected colors, fingered by strangers who smiled at each other.