After her mastectomy, the absence is white space.
A held breath before something meaningful is spoken.

We rest on the porch quietly, waiting for each star
to step out from the night sky.

She lays her hand upon the blankness of her chest.
The interval between beats of her heart

is the space between the stars holding on to darkness.
She tells me she is ready to let go and I refuse

to imagine what space then will open up.
I remember the empty corner every year

after the Christmas tree is taken down, how it
relinquishes light to let the shadows return.

She says these stars are only as bright as the night
is black, finally finding balance after

years of extremes, strong enough now to step into
the whiteness where the black pines sway in the wind.

*Yohaku no bi is the beauty of blank space, especially a visual esthetic appreciation of unoccupied space in art exemplified by Hasegawa Tōhaku’s Sōhrin-zu byōbu, the Pine Trees.