Balloons

It is dusk
And I drive home.
I see pink balloons,
Floating in the dim light,
Over the grassy park,
Onto the road.
They represented
Women,
Who all were victims.
Who all battled.
Some won,
Some lost,
All fought,
Breast cancer.
A friend,
Fights now.
No one can tell us,
If she will win.
It has been so long,
And the cancer,
Is no longer,
What it was once named.
Now her treatment,
Maintains a standoff.
My own mother,
Too was called,
To the front line.
She won,
But only through,
Radical mastectomy.
But now I live,
In uneasy,
Silent fear,
Of my own body.
That something,
That partly defines my gender,
Gives pleasure and shape,
Nurtures a child,
Can change,
To an enemy.
Another,
Asked my mum,
How she could lose,
Something that made her a woman.
She said it was easy,
It was going to kill her.
I think,
I would choose the same.
So I wear,
A pink ribbon,
For the hundreds,
Thousands,
Tens of thousands,
Of women.
To remind
And remember.