by Kathryn Kirkpatrick
When I woke up in recovery,
I had this song in my head.
I’ve got you under my skin.
I’ve got you deep in the heart of me.
Frank Sinatra wasn’t who I’d expected
after losing my breast.
But all that night in the medical
twilight, he kept singing,
so deep in my heart
that you’re really a part of me
The part of me that chose the song
wouldn’t switch it off or change it,
persistent broken record, insistent wooer.
I’d doze and wake. Nurses. IV.
I tried so hard to resist.
I said to myself this affair
it never will go so well.
Strange how I wondered
what it meant, the song opaque
as the surgical bra I couldn’t look into.