Cut

She places me
An unknowing actor
Unwittingly cast among an omniscient crew
Trendelenberg
Upon the dagger cold surface
The subject of this sterile theatre's grotesque play
 

"Be still, my love
This will be over soon"
 

And, tongue syrup thick,
Eyelids heavy, mind drugged
I plunge head over heels
Into fitful sleep
 

Senses disabled, rhythms controlled
I enter blissful agony
As she, calculating without emotion
Makes her first skin-deep incision
And proceeds to explore
 

Hands twisting guts
Her fingers feel the final flutters of those butterflies
Dying inside the antrum of my stomach
 

Her knuckle, barely brushing the phrenic
Paralyzing my diaphragm
My breath catching --
 

And moving upward, massaging those chambers
Made weak with love and want
A synchronous muscle fluttering haphazardly in her presence
 

And in her cold focus
Can she notice the beads forming on my forehead?
The teardrop carving its winding route down my cheek?
 

Finally, with surgical precision
She sews me shut
Pats me dry
Wakes me up
Sends me out
 

And I -- scarred, body lighter but heart heavier --
Gaze back at the auditorium, searching for that cloaked clinician
 

But she has moved on.
 

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