My breasts reside in a box, cast in bronze, memory of what was…

July 2009, a few days before my single mastectomy (no reconstruction) I panicked at the idea of losing my boobs, and convinced my father in law ( an artist) to make a plaster cast, which he later used to make a bronze bust. After years in the bottom of my clothes cupboard, my friend Thomas organised an old wooden gramophone box for the bust to be mounted in…my personal portable museum…

Two undulations
Appearing under
Tight tricot
Uncomfortable
Unfamiliar
Embarrassing even

But before long
Two breasts
Eager
Bare
Weighed in warm hands
Lost in passion
For the first time

Swollen now
Grand
The twosome
Giving answer
To the greedy demands
Of newborn lips

Suddenly
A cherished
Symmetry
Shattered
Invaded and disposed off

Perfection lost
Amazone
Conquering life
With a lobsided
Newness

Anna Versteeg London 2010

Louise Bourgeois

This drawing by Louise Bourgeois reminds me of the drain curled up under the skin of my chest after the mastectomy…drip, drip, drip…the notebook next to my bed was full of these spiral diagrams, trying to visualise and understand what was happening inside…