Flexible Sigmoidoscopy

And now another personal violation,
in the same submission posture before an image
that lurches in cinéma-verité down a tunnel
of garish tangerine,
to monitor a self I haven't seen.

Yes, there it is. It's quite a little monster.
We're going to have to cut it out in pieces.

The silver blade goes in and out of shot.

Open. Now close. Open again. Now close.

Something inside has set my teeth on edge
like a fingernail on mortar – not quite pain
but an electric buzz, a scything whisper.
Memory stores the images away
and my attached labelling equipment
begins to shape and generate these words.

That's about half. I'll make another appointment
to finish it. It's probably benign,
but these things can turn cancerous if left.
We'll know for sure after the biopsy.

-------------------------

© Brian Fewster,
Published in A Chide's Alphabet 2, 2001

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