Healing, One Way

I'm the only one,
my plastic surgeon says,
whose navel does this:

closes up.

Everyone else's, I'm supposing then,
heals precisely right--
suture lines fading quietly from red
to white

to gone.

Not like the heavy keloid scars that expand
in the middle of my belly,
threatening to eventually

shut off this opening.

It actually happened twice
after two surgeries
to me alone, the doctor says.

I don't believe it. Can't fathom
there are no other women
walking around with belly buttons
growing shut as a result
of surgery to replace a breast or breasts

lost to cancer.

You see, I've learned from growing older
and from this disease
that I am not unique--
unfathomable, inexplicable things happen
to everyone,

sometimes more than once.

And, if I am so solitary, why
would the cure seem so simple,
so common
as a marble to anchor the place

where one begins?