Postscript for a Body

By ​Elena Sénéchal-Becker

That was the summer you chopped your breasts off
            the same summer my parents sat me down

my mother smiling nervously
             to announce that she was doing it too

for different reasons

That was the summer I moved home for a while
            but we still spent time together didn’t we

Mom is funny about this stuff  

when I told her about you
she called it a phase

Said kids these days carve at themselves
                                                                     like fruit

Young people don’t respect their bodies, they said so
              on the news

I watched her spoon rice into a cracked bowl
                 thinking of tumors, how they root

in a place that once fed me

   You’re telling me I’m made up

of the same stuff?

That was the summer of losing 2 to 3 pounds

In June, I memorize instructions on how to empty drains
two birds with one bulbous stone

I compile heavily researched lists of  “worst foods to eat            after ______”
  
                                                               “best foods to eat             to beat _______”

I make it my life’s work

to create a useful spreadsheet

In July, while mom shops for wigs

that won’t itch in the sweltering heat

we fantasize about what they might do with your flesh
        I heard it’s straight to the incinerator

In August your day comes

 and we drive down the straight back of hospital city
           one last photo, shirt lifted in the bathroom 
 
Then your surgeon calls to say it looks great
                but limb removal never really does  

your mouth sheds its hot colour

When the nurse wheels you down a bit rhodiola green
I crack a warm can of ginger ale
and hold it to your mouth
like communion

For the next few weeks, we build our altar
     to this cavity

And I sit to survey your contused rib cage
       wince at your labored breath

 It’s ungodly, the space we make when we love
        there’s so much room in it

Your ribbed t-shirt catches on my earring
      as I listen to your chest
the sound your bloodless body makes

Before bed I gather the silicone tape
                                                             binder
                                                                          zinc

    into a tiny mesh sac with a zipper

set out the advil and tylenol in a guerilla formation

At your two-week checkup

I correct the doctor on your pronouns

Whatever, you say. He served his purpose

Back home mom is planting her gardenias

In the winter there will be something called revisions

               but for now
the sun’s setting later
                           we live on

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Elena Sénéchal-Becker is a Montréal-based writer and PhD student at McGill University. She runs Groundwork, a creative workshop dedicated to supporting queer writers.
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Instagram: @elena.online