diagnostic

heart racing, I fumble with frayed strings on a pink cape. If I had no cape, 

if I was naked straight backed, they would have to reckon 


with my breasts. My body. I think I would feel braver. 

This worthless, scratchy cloth makes me feel like a child in ill-fitting Sunday clothes. All my belongings 


in the locker. The key on my wrist like at the swimming pool. A tech positions me 

impossible poses, statuesque, awkward model angles, chin tilted, hips leaning, arm draping familiar 


around the cold imaging machine. I glance at the pile of printouts she's left strewn 

casually on the table. My breast, apparently, a fine white silhouette against black 


Negative image? A few strands, white nebula, thread silkily through. In one spot overlapping, thickening into dense web. 

This spot is circled in red. 


Sweat breaks. I can smell my body (no deodorant allowed) as she squashes my right breast. Crank, crank 

Tell me when it hurts.


While she wipes down the machine she she asks

are you looking forward to Christmas? ... Well, I was… She isn't listening anyway 


she takes me to the waiting room where I wait. A radiologist will deliver my fate. 

Still wearing the infantilizing pink gown. Still wishing I could take it off. 


When he comes to me I will be a satyr, a bold and naked real animal body. Instead 

covered and cowed, I am deposited at a table with two chairs. She closes the door. 


Three windows on the far wall are covered with blackout curtains. Privacy = occlusion = shame. 

A bright yellow flower hangs framed. The perspective is behind the flower looking out toward sun, 


petals alight. What is the symbolism? I look at the flower's shoulders; what is it telling me? A clock on the wall

ticks the same second over and over and over. The second hand is stuck. Ticking is maniacal. Ominous. I walk to the windows


pull up a shade I must have some light. I must look out 

stormy sky a lit with breakthrough sun. Wet parking lot. Cars speeding by on South. I must feel 


I can breathe the air out there even though I am in here. I return to the table and sit in the other chair

the one typically assumed by the doctor. Imagine being in his shoes. In control 


as dozens of women move through, uncertain, worried, contemplating life and death. I sit up straight 

imagine it is my room. I have been here hundreds and hundreds of times 


delivering all kinds of news. I sit up straight, shining through my invisible cape, 

when he walks in 




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