Dysesthesia – by Shey Marque
ISLAND | ONLINE ONLY
Transforming the medical record into poetry
There was a burning of skin
in the dermatome under my left arm,
& I was changing
into a long white cotton gown
with ties in the back
& I am back, slipping
into my first laboratory coat
as a doctoral scholar in a new lab
—I’d been used to them buttoning up
at the front, & it felt momentous
somehow,
as if anything could happen
The radiographer, there to capture
the herniation, degeneration, the osseous lesions
of my cervical bones,
to make drawings with the rays, the shining,
exposes my neck to the eye of the scanner
& dashes out of the room
My annulus, my little ring,
like growth rings on a tree, on the scales
of a fish, a doughnut, a halo,
(anyhow smaller than an anus)
calcifying, falsifying, overlying, mystifying,
misidentifying
is hardening to stone
The table lines me up in the tunnel
& the x-ray tube inside the gantry
buzzing, clicking, whirring
makes tomographs in thin slices as it draws
Hold your breath
Breathe
Hold your breath
Breathe
By the way, my lung’s apices,
much like small rods at the top of a flamen’s cap—
the priest’s emblem of the shepherd—
apparently are as normal
as air is black.
Sitting up to leave, my right hand extends
as if it expects to be kissed
▼
Image: CDC - Unsplash
If you liked this piece, please share it. And please consider donating or subscribing so that we can keep supporting writers and artists.