Anna Evans

PAEAN TO MY FLAWS

When I stand nude and face the looking glass
I touch the signs that tell me I'm a mother:
the stretch marks overlapping one another
like silver trails of snails on blades of grass,
my drooping breasts. I would watch Chrissie pass
when I was young, and think I'd so much rather
have her twin peaks. My own weren't worth the bother
even in those padded, push up bras.

And once my babies' gummy jawbones closed
upon my tender nipples, they transposed
what bounce there was to sag with every suck.
Yet childless Chrissie, whose tremendous breasts
earned cat-eyed stares from girls and boyish jests,
lost both to cancer; I embrace my luck.

Anna Evans' poems have appeared or are forthcoming in the Harvard Review, Rattle and Measure. She is the editor of The Barefoot Muse, and is currently enrolled in the Bennington College MFA Program. Her chapbook Swimming is available from Maverick Duck Press.