by Kristin Entler
my body slab-flat on a metal table;
my jaw pulled toward the ceiling;
my tongue held to make room for the rigid
tubes in my throat. Nurses swaddle my legs
in warm blankets simply because I said I’m cold.
Straps secure across my thighs because feral
when unconscious, survival brain will try to keep
anyone out. But I signed the forms for anything
that goes wrong or right for the hours I am
given to the professionals reaching into my chest.
Cradling pieces of my flesh and bone, they know of me
what I never will: the color of the inside of my lungs;
the sound a wheeze makes with my larynx exposed;
the crippled state of my blood before it reaches the heart.
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