In an earlier iteration of this blog I posted some poems by poets I actually know. I thought I'd continue that theme, in part because this poet, Ann for short, mentioned today on FB that today's poem was just nominated for a Pushcart Prize by Intima: A Journal of Narrative Medicine. Good on you, Ann!
Although I've never met Ann in person, we have Zoom-met more or less monthly as part of a small group of poets who met in a workshop with Mark Doty a couple of years ago. I enjoy Ann's poetry, which very often has a Greek theme befitting her own proud background. So here is
Architecture of Anatomy
without living
as the technicians slide me into this metal coffer.
They want to see the compromised pillar of my spine.
The machine realigns the water molecules of my fragile scaffolding—
bone, muscle, ligaments rinsed clean in magnetic resonance
the shifts in frequency
sirens in the room
I am tied to the mast
a doppler wave washes over my body
and somewhere an opera tenor joins the cacophony.
Is that a bend in the light?
An image tomorrow will show how the discs
of my vertebrae resemble
the ruins of a temple.
I want my body's Doric order restored—
like the strongest of columns in the Parthenon
before the explosion.
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