after my mother’s mastectomy

I wanted majesty      only majesty.

I watched a program
about a cave in Texas where
fifteen million bats
raise their pups every summer,
and the size of that cave
and the number of bats
pleased me. It pleased me.

And I have never understood classical music,
but suddenly I wanted to listen to
Brahms or Bach,
     or maybe even an opera.

And I took my old Homer from the shelf,
because I wanted ritual and epic,
gods and monsters and longing;
something very old and very true,
while I sailed my own
     rough     and wine-dark sea.

Whole wide worlds to replace a breast;
a breast a memory of
                               the whole wide world.