she was sorting her brothers socks and
folding underwear patterned with horses and rockets
when her mother appeared in the doorway and said 
touch my breast
and then got sick and better and pregnant 
with more boy and more laundry 

she never got over the lump 
her pregnancies were tumors
so she went on the road
to Pennsylvania and then Cuba 
where there would be no anesthesia
excited by what her body could do
she became flesh and a hot knife
and threw a party after each one