Mammography

by Bianca Podesta-Armitage

At the end, every patient gets a rose,
a long-stemmed hopesign that says these in charge
are more than technicians of steel; they have
prepared a table for us of tea and apples
we will not eat. The routine tests completed, I sit
in the circle of women identically robed,
waiting in white while she reads the x-rays forever,
the doctor in ultrasound.

The time is early winter. The heat is slow.
I shiver. It comes to me to pray for them
who have already been pierced with knives.
But how? I have no names or stories, only faces,
our bodies lost in shapeless white. I imagine
the ceiling is stretched canvas. Have I a brush? No,
a palette knife–let’s stay with knives. My spirit hand
moves fast, trailing oils in flesh and gray,
softest sienna, layering, layering white,
certain God sees the frail chin, those eyes focused inward,
that mouth with fearful breath for what cannot be said.

Always good at getting a likeness, I outline and fill
with speed this Sistine prayer across
the closed sky. On my last strokes, it seems to open.
A thin voice calls my name. I get up, dress, take
from the nurse my undeserved rose, and go,
reasoning some florist grateful for his deliverance
makes this donation. Safe in my car, more shivering,
not from the cold, but from the vision that just caught
my eye–of Jesus walking through the halls of radiology
with arms full of roses.

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