Your Astrological Sign

Scientists discover          a golf-ball-sized sponge 
     in the deepest,           darkest ocean areas
that could cure     cancer             while I discover          a rounded, 
two-centimeter lump       in the bottom curve 
of my right                   breast. 
                                                    Eight o’clock,
             the doctor writes.                  The breast is soft 
 
and the lump is obvious;   I am nursing.     Its date 
of origin                      is unknown.                 I bite back                    this news 
when my mother calls,           I avoid bringing my fingers here 
                           while I feed my daughter. 
                                                                   "It does not have the shape
of cancer,"    one doctor says. 
 
                                                     What is the shape of cancer? 
I imagine
            the constellation,                      the sign my daughter 
was born under.           How strange              that I am made 
of the same                   molecules,                  the same matter;         and will 
             end up 
back there, somewhere,          spread among the stars.