breast cancer, metaphorically

repair the window prone to tipping some pieces ready to go like Mary
in a blue glass dress falling easily after old lead gets wound into a sleeping
coil while other panes need to be forced without breaking this is patience
that ends in mud pane garden crucifix crack & Q-tip what was broken back
up she goes to perch each day with the unholiest bursting bosom of light

Betsy Johnson’s work has appeared in Boulevard, Prairie Schooner, AGNI (online), Hayden’s Ferry Review, Columbia Poetry Review, and The Rumpus. A manuscript of her essays was a semifinalist in the Graywolf Nonfiction Prize.