Post by MoonyLuna on Feb 9, 2009 12:04:19 GMT -5
after Brigit Pegeen Kelly
I am keeping very still,
my pants hiked, my socks rolled down
over the mouth of my sneakers,
so limb leads can read my heart at an angle.
Shirtless, pressed flat to paper pulled
over the creaky plastic exam table.
The leads on my chest pump electrical information
to the EKG machine for interpretation.
The nurse says, You seem a little anxious
and I am. But how can she tell?
I am keeping very still.
The physician's assistant says,
Try thinking of something you enjoy
but I can't seem to think of anything.
A picture on the wall displays a proud,
healthy cartoon heart, bloodless
and stripped of its ventricles.
I am thinking of swans.
I don't enjoy swans, but here they are,
two, in the mental picture I'm supposed
to calm myself with, gliding towards each other
on a flat lake, a lake whose surface doesn't crease
for ripples, so calm that it might as well be ice,
until they almost meet, and in the negative space
between them, their craned necks form the outline
of a heart, a healthy cartoon heart.
I am keeping very still.
I was told electrocardiograms require stillness
for an accurate reading.
Sudden movement would upset
the machine. Sudden movement would scare away
the swans. Aside from breathing,
I haven't moved an inch.
I am reminding myself that I have to breathe,
that breathing does not preclude stillness,
that I was told to keep very still.
I am keeping very still.
The machine makes a scree sound,
printing a reading, then another.
I tell myself not to be humiliated
but I'm always humiliated with my shirt off,
this white belly.
I have resorted to jokes with my wife—
it's just a little bloating,
there's a baby kangaroo in this pouch I got,
or Blackbeard hid his treasure here
but you can't dig it out until I'm dead.
What are those leads digging out of me
and sending back for analysis?
I am keeping very still
hoping keeping very still won't be
a permanent condition.
There is someone outside the exam room.
I can hear the scrape of chart against door.
I know the light streaming in
the crack under the door is now broken
by two feet. I have looked at light
under enough exam room doors
to recognize that break, someone standing,
chart in hand, thinking about coming in,
thinking, Again, this poor bastard.
I would crane my neck
to see the twin shadows but
I am keeping very still.
I am thinking of swans.
I am thinking of a dead doe's legs,
upturned, the white of her bloating belly
appearing, at a distance, to be two swans.
No, not dead; just a doe, upturned and still.
That's it, the nurse says.
I can get up, can dress, can wait, can watch
the twin shadows come, pause, go.
That's it, a new doctor, the last set of shadows,
says. I'm fine, I can put on my coat
and go home, can skip admit on my way out.
The printouts from the EKG machine,
drawings in an unsteady hand,
are the downward strokes of a feather,
a clumsy attempt at a wing.
And all that peaceful white space:
two swans stuck in ice.
I can go now, I can get off the table.
But I can't. I don't.
I am keeping very still.
Copyright
Ross White
I am keeping very still,
my pants hiked, my socks rolled down
over the mouth of my sneakers,
so limb leads can read my heart at an angle.
Shirtless, pressed flat to paper pulled
over the creaky plastic exam table.
The leads on my chest pump electrical information
to the EKG machine for interpretation.
The nurse says, You seem a little anxious
and I am. But how can she tell?
I am keeping very still.
The physician's assistant says,
Try thinking of something you enjoy
but I can't seem to think of anything.
A picture on the wall displays a proud,
healthy cartoon heart, bloodless
and stripped of its ventricles.
I am thinking of swans.
I don't enjoy swans, but here they are,
two, in the mental picture I'm supposed
to calm myself with, gliding towards each other
on a flat lake, a lake whose surface doesn't crease
for ripples, so calm that it might as well be ice,
until they almost meet, and in the negative space
between them, their craned necks form the outline
of a heart, a healthy cartoon heart.
I am keeping very still.
I was told electrocardiograms require stillness
for an accurate reading.
Sudden movement would upset
the machine. Sudden movement would scare away
the swans. Aside from breathing,
I haven't moved an inch.
I am reminding myself that I have to breathe,
that breathing does not preclude stillness,
that I was told to keep very still.
I am keeping very still.
The machine makes a scree sound,
printing a reading, then another.
I tell myself not to be humiliated
but I'm always humiliated with my shirt off,
this white belly.
I have resorted to jokes with my wife—
it's just a little bloating,
there's a baby kangaroo in this pouch I got,
or Blackbeard hid his treasure here
but you can't dig it out until I'm dead.
What are those leads digging out of me
and sending back for analysis?
I am keeping very still
hoping keeping very still won't be
a permanent condition.
There is someone outside the exam room.
I can hear the scrape of chart against door.
I know the light streaming in
the crack under the door is now broken
by two feet. I have looked at light
under enough exam room doors
to recognize that break, someone standing,
chart in hand, thinking about coming in,
thinking, Again, this poor bastard.
I would crane my neck
to see the twin shadows but
I am keeping very still.
I am thinking of swans.
I am thinking of a dead doe's legs,
upturned, the white of her bloating belly
appearing, at a distance, to be two swans.
No, not dead; just a doe, upturned and still.
That's it, the nurse says.
I can get up, can dress, can wait, can watch
the twin shadows come, pause, go.
That's it, a new doctor, the last set of shadows,
says. I'm fine, I can put on my coat
and go home, can skip admit on my way out.
The printouts from the EKG machine,
drawings in an unsteady hand,
are the downward strokes of a feather,
a clumsy attempt at a wing.
And all that peaceful white space:
two swans stuck in ice.
I can go now, I can get off the table.
But I can't. I don't.
I am keeping very still.
Copyright
Ross White