Examination

Fiona Tinwei Lam
From:  Drunken Boat, an online literary journal of the arts

You are splayed like a specimen
under fluorescent lights,
the doctor's fingers rummaging in your body
as if it were a broken toaster.

You talk about who hurt you
to this white—coated confidante.
His metal tools aligned on a metal tray,
his hands glowing, opaquely unreal
in plastic gloves, his glances
of polite concern.

You hear waves of footsteps,
rattling stretchers and carts
wheeled on endless linoleum,
doctors being paged, someone crying
down a labyrinth of corridors,
all sounds swabbed
and wrapped in gauze.

An intern watches your unraveling,
his thoughts dammed against a smirk.
You feel your vulva turning
into pussy.

The fingers snag a nerve.
Your eyes shut. You know
theirs stay open.

Poem 1 | Poem 2 | Poem 3 | Poem 4 | Poem 5 | Poem 6

Fiona Tinwei Lam's works copyright © to the author.