After Getting the Mole Removed
MARY STONE
We ate hard peaches, wishing we had
picked up the other ones.
These were more like pears, you said,
hard, missing that peach juice.
We ignored the bandage on your left hand,
the shadow of dried blood
that shone through. I imagined the black
mole, scraped off a scalpel
into a clear jar. After, you had to stock up
on sun-block and left-handed gloves.
The doctor would be going over each mole
one by one in the exam room,
every few months; I vowed
to get to them before anyone else –
to linger over them with my breath,
to brush them with the care I would a nipple.
I didn’t tell you how it had looked like
the stigma of a flower, how I couldn’t
help but wonder if each mole on your pale skin
was made up of a cluster of smaller moles,
if these buds could fall, scatter along
your limbs and make others grow.
I didn’t know what pollinated them,
the sun, or the touch of my hand.
