FROM IMAGING CENTER

THIMBLE

Father and Mother pinafore the little girl,
muff her ears, glove her hands
against cripples in Douglas Park
reaching for pennies.

On straw-like streetcar seats
they gather her ruffles
away from elbows and satchels,
onion-scented jackets.

At Lake Michigan
they inner-tube waves,
shore her from the undertow,
sieve dirty sands to sterile white.

In a blooming garden
they thimble her fingers from thorns.

IMAGING CENTER

In the holding room we sit side by side,
feigning concentration on magazines and books,
holding ourselves together in pale-blue wrap-arounds
adjusted on the side by skinny straps
for any size or shape of body.
Size and shape hardly matter,
our cleavage-pride now a silly pretense,
all nutrition for our progeny
drained out and dried up,
our reasons-for-being,
no longer viable.

The workers appear now in the hallway,
calling us by name, softly enough,
as if each of us can retain a dignified anonymity
when we rise from our chairs,
relinquish our reading matter,
smooth our wrinkled gowns,
then walk down the sterile corridor
toward rooms housing stone-cold machines
that photograph all the secrets we possess,
magically recording the data of our own machines
that do indeed break down.

We are objects now in an assembly line,
though we wait to be disassembled, really,
handled tenderly enough
by fast-paced nurses, technicians, radiologists
who are always running out of time
as they process dozens of us per hour,
the throngs who need to bank on timing and genes
and the lucky draw,
as in Shirley Jackson's "The Lottery"–
except in this scenario it's the photo image
that either declares us free for another year
or sets forth the stoning.

FACE TO FACE

I buy your blue crystal,
your amber earrings and brooches.
You smile at me and say thank you in your language
as you take my money,
and I say you're welcome
as I turn to leave.

I think about your broad face and blue eyes
and how I could be one of you, really,
because my ancestors lived near you
for hundreds of years.

I go to your restaurant,
eat your pierogies, your borscht, your stuffed cabbage,
and as I wipe my mouth on your napkin
I think about how close these foods are to my kind.
We smile at each other
as I turn my back to leave.

I go to your hotel and walk down the corridor
and nod a thank-you to the maid
who has just finished cleaning my room.
She smiles back at me
as she turns and pushes her cart out the door.

I take a shower with your soap and water,
wipe myself with your towels,
pull off your chenille bedspread,
rest my head on your pillow,
sleep on your sheets.

The next morning
I want to look at my new possessions,
but instead of finding shopping bags
I stumble over a wooden box with a lid on it.
I try to pull the lid up
but then I see it is fastened,
like a child's jewelry box or diary,
so I try my luggage key
and it unlocks the box.

Instead of blue crystal
and amber earrings and brooches,
I see a pile of gold fillings.
I slam the lid back down
and turn around quickly
and look very closely
in the mirror.