Kate Champagne

MAMMOGRAM

PUBLISHED IN FOLIO 2026: VOL. 41.

Remove your shirt.
Calloused fingers
scoop my breast
into a plastic tray.
The top of the mold
descends, pinching skin.

This will be uncomfortable.

But I am a woman—
already accustomed
to compressing myself
for the needs of others—
and I hardly notice.

You’re not in the right place.

Commanding hands
adjust the rest of my body
to their desired pose:
they rotate my hips,
position my shoulders,
press my pale cheek
against cold metal.

Good. There.

They expect obedience,
and I give it to them.

Hold still. Don't breathe.

I hold my breath until
it is a fire inside me,
until submission
burns my flesh.

Now breathe.

𐫱𐫱𐫱

Kate Champagne lives in the Twin Cities. A lover of languages, she holds a Master’s in Spanish from Middlebury Language Schools in Vermont with a specialization in linguistics. She teaches Spanish by day and writes in the in-between, especially moved to give voice to the poetry of the everyday experience and the complexities of the interior life. Kate has been published in Allegro Magazine and Chariot Press and has work forthcoming in Veritas Journal and Quillkeepers Press.