Mammogram after the Death of a Friend

The tech’s gloved hands pull at my breast like pork.
The plexiglass descends on tender flesh.
I fill the awkwardness with casual talk;
the plates revolve with their relentless swish.
I’ve done this every year for more than ten.
It hurts more than the “pinch” they always claim,
but I know next year I’ll be back again,
and then I think, I wish she’d done the same

because she’s dead—breast cancer, metastatic.
I hear her voice again: It’s everywhere.
Undiagnosed because asymptomatic
until it wasn’t. She didn’t have a prayer.
I’m angry at her, I’ll admit, if pressed.
I step back, turn, offer the other breast.