Dear Readers,

When we launched Waterwheel Review, we were keen to explain why we were so moved and motivated by the image of the waterwheel. Water stands for language, an ever flowing, renewable source; the waterwheel, an engine of labor, circles through, lifting words and then dropping them back into the running stream. Our magazine is a mill, we said, where the waterwheel powers writing and publishing. “We want—and need—to make things.”

For a couple of years, now, we have known that we can’t make enough of our own things while we give so much energy to the work of others. We have had to cut substantially the time and attention devoted to our own writing, and mostly we have been glad to do it, determined to find a way to repay our own work in the end. We never did find that way.

If we could quit our jobs and earn that income publishing this magazine, we would take that deal in an instant. But that’s not the world we live in. For many, many months we have known this, but we couldn’t accept it until now. And thank goodness for that.

Every single issue of this magazine has been a wonder that transported and enchanted us. We can’t say we gloried in every moment. We read or edited or built the site at times while sick, exhausted, grieving—that’s the nature of any publication. But we damn well gloried in every word, every paired image and sound.

Four years and thirty-six issues: What an honor to publish our contributors. What a privilege to offer stunning work to our readers. We must use the word pleasure, too, always rolled out to accompany “honor and privilege,” but pleasure isn’t strong enough, nor is gratitude nor joy nor blessing. For once we find ourselves at a loss for words to express precisely what it has meant to keep this waterwheel turning.

Maybe this will do it: How many times does anyone ever fully achieve the glittering, half-glimpsed vision floating above; that winking, flirting piece of art we ache to manifest? For the three of us, precisely this once.

We will keep making things and so will you. We started this magazine with the image of the waterwheel and a Jean Rhys quote, and we will end in the same way, as we thank you for reading and submitting, and wish you and yours all the very best:

Listen to me. All of writing is a huge lake. There are great rivers that feed the lake, like Tolstoy and Dostoyevsky. And there are mere trickles, like Jean Rhys. All that matters is feeding the lake. I don’t matter. The lake matters. You must keep feeding the lake.

—Claire, Suzanne, Cheryl

September 1, 2024: Waterwheel Review will stay online for the foreseeable future. It remains as it looked for the final June 2024 issue.

Waterwheel Review

Literature Without Labels

Danielle Joffe

Reduction

by Danielle Joffe

March 2021

Age Twenty-one

I present my naked 34-DD breasts to eight male medical students in crisp white coats who scribble notes on their clipboards at NYU Langone Hospital. I might try to flirt with them if I wasn’t perched on the edge of a hospital bed with my dressing gown pulled down to my waist.

Age Eleven

I am still flat-chested when my mother’s good friend Alan, who is 37, gives me a good-night kiss at the end of one of my parents’ dinner parties. I might think that kind or comforting if his poofy lips didn’t linger so long on my mouth. 

Age Twenty-one

My surgeon stands before me, an ample-bellied, short man, who comes highly recommended as the “absolute top” plastic surgeon in Manhattan. He pokes at my breasts with a blue marker, making dots here and there, strategizing the best way to perfect my female form. I ignore the hot blush of my cheeks and submit to the redesign. One of the residents interviews me in his I’m-gonna-be-a-doctor voice, “And when did you first notice the size of your breasts as a problem?”

I pause for a moment, unsure of how to answer. “Um, 16?”

Age Sixteen

I am newly fully bosomed, and after five years of good-night visits, Alan takes my virginity in my bed, on my birthday. He doesn’t ask; he just takes it. I didn’t struggle or cry; I think I thought I was his for keeps. But soon after, he disappears from my life, leaving me to wonder about what part of me he no longer wanted. 

Age Twenty-one

I awake from the surgery and sob from the pain. 

Weeks later, in the doctor’s office, my bandages are unwound. The nurse hands me a mirror. 

My skin is corpse pale, splattered in purple and green bruises, and painted in orange antiseptic dye, the blue marking pen dots still visible. Two hard and lumpy torpedo-shaped mounds with upside-down T-shaped ruddy scars reach across my torso. 

A ring of puckered, bloody stitches encircles each of my nipples. The nurse sees my distress and chirps like Glenda the Good Witch, “At some point, your areolas were snipped entirely off your body and sat together on a dish while the surgeons tailored the rest of your flesh to a C-cup before they were sewn back in place!”

My surgeon walks in to admire his work. He tells me not to worry and that my new breasts will be beautiful once they recover from the shock and trauma of all they have been through. 

He adds, “You are going to love me when you are 50.” Before I can ask, “Why so long?” he walks out the door.

After Age Twenty-one and Before Age Fifty

With each new boyfriend, I argue with myself about the best time to recite my small print. Do I blurt it out at the first kiss or whisper a trigger warning right before my bra comes off? I imagine they will run out the door, horrified, but no one does. Some ask questions, Why? being the most common. I offer a carousel of responses: It didn’t feel like me. I wasn’t at home in my body. I didn’t like the men who liked big boobs. It was too hard to find a bathing suit. I don’t mention Alan.

Age Fifty

With my fingers, I trace my fine scars, now hidden by the perfected swell of my 34-C breasts. I acknowledge my surgeon’s skill but also, and maybe for the first time, wonder at my own ruthlessness. What part of myself did I want to excise? 

Danielle Joffe is a spiritual psychologist, acupuncturist, and lecturer. After a lifetime of living in all kinds of places, Danielle is amazed to find herself right back where she was born in Fairfield, CT. She and her husband share a home with Emerson, their Aussiedoodle, and an orange cat named Charlie.