Valerie Gillies

A needle test into my left breast.

icy flame on the beacon cairn needling the fiery pap on tin-top tap a small needle into the smooth undulating billowy hill a dark nipple on the mass of bright flesh-coloured rock

the perfect cone where screes slide down the long slopes, the bare zone grows as the hill wears away, tethering the breast to the place of fire, weathering each rock in its own way.

So the image of Tinto Hill, which is a place where

I grew up near there, spending a lot of time with my grandparents.

That came to me during treatment.

And this is the one Ted requested.

Golden breast.

Say goodbye to your breast, she said, for tomorrow it will be gone.

So I walked far into the hills.

I opened my shirt.

The sun set on my breast.

Next day, the tissue the surgeon cut and the pathologist placed between slides, that wasn't the golden breast on the hill in a place where light stays.

So, enough.

Yes, because we were at Whiston, which is the foot of Tinto Hill.

Well, I always try looking for the crazy poets first, because they've usually written something that will help.

And I would include amongst them, definitely John Clare, so powerful and so, well, full of integrity again.

He actually experienced all these things.

And just think who else I might suggest.

I do use the border ballads a lot because the passion that is in them, the desire for revenge or the desire to end this story, that is so powerful for people.