by M. Cynthia Cheung

-Anna Bertha Roentgen, 1885

In physics, x represents the unknown.
When Anna’s husband discovered a strange
new radiation, he named it and made history’s
first image of a living hand: her fingers’
bones and, on the fourth digit, the ring floating,
as if around a planet.

*

When I was six, I unfolded an artist’s
rendition of the solar system from the center
of an old National Geographic and discovered
that the sun would dilate within 5 billion years and overtake
the Earth. I couldn’t decide which was worse—this
or extinction.

*

It’s true that scientists apply Latin
best. For instance, a dying star’s
final breath is a nebula.
But my favorite is ex, meaning “lacking”
or “out of.” Examples: to extirpate,
to exsanguinate. A cell dividing
will arrange its chromosomes
into a line of exes, a heap
of cells, waiting.

*

On the day when I lay, feet in stirrups, possibly grateful
for unconsciousness while the doctor scraped and sucked,
what did my mind turn to? I had no dreams.
The embryo neither; it lacked half
its parts. When I awoke, my heart was still
beating too quickly.

*

Mrs. Roentgen, tell me what future you saw
when you first laid eyes on that x-ray—
your black bones, your incandescent flesh.

______________________________________________________________________

M. Cynthia Cheung is a physician whose writing has appeared or is forthcoming in Dialogist, Palette Poetry, RHINO, Salamander, Sugar House Review, Zócalo Public Square, and others.