In Treatment
The maidens stand
At attention: masked
And gloved, they ask
My name. When will
I forget my birth date?
Ritually, they insert
The needle into a machine
Inside my chest wall.
Dutifully they tell me
What new substance
Is dripping into my blood
Stream. No fake smiles
Hidden by masks, not even
My own. The hours lengthen.
There’s a redwood outside
The window. If you want
A redwood next year,
Take the poison. Don’t
run away—There’s nowhere
safe to go in this country,
Or even in this “Infusion
Chamber,” what they
Call these cubicles of
Science, of healing, of
Hell. The maidens come
And go, recite your name,
Here’s a new chemical, they
Chant in their kindergarten
Teacher voices while the doctor
Drops by, serious and preoccupied:
So much cancer.
Can I take my mask
Off to drink water?
Is the water safe?
Is anywhere?
Dystopian dream:
I am living it.
When I was Whole
I would wake and
wait till it was light,
or often go out in the
starlit dark to grab my
paper. Coffee and paper:
the ritual was like warming
my hands over a fire: a start
to the day. Unlock the
back door for grandson,
make him toast and water for
school, out to the car, perfectly timed,
or not, to trudge with the army of
parents, our children to the doors.
When I was whole,
all of my parts still inside
me, not disposed of in medical
waste, there was the time
when I didn’t have periods, when
I thought I wasn’t really a girl, at l3.
Periods never bothered me, I was glad
to have them. They stopped when I was
twenty, mourning a vanished lover.
Returned, and flowed, stopping
again only for pregnancies,
Ticking in and out the years, the
decades, thirties, forties–suddenly
too much blood, and then none
at all. I thought that was the end
of the story of those organs.
I thought I’d be getting coffee
and paper day in and out, until
everything changed. They cut
out my insides and the world reeled
and stopped. Thousands of people are
dying from an invisible plague.
There is no more school, and I am
not reading the paper. I am not whole,
yet still alive. The days of my organs
inside me are over, and what lies ahead
of me, and all of us, no one can say.
My Hair
Is almost gone,
Pink scalp shining on top.
It’s matted into dreadlocks
At the nape of my neck.
It’s sailing down the shower
Drain, its crumbling in my
Fingers, it’s who I was
But not who I am, anymore.
Somewhere between
The pieces of dark hair
Curled in my palm
Just like when my
Children had their first
Haircuts, somewhere between
The glad cries of the birds
Swooping and chirping all the
Long early summer afternoon,
Somewhere between the birds
And the first roses, thorned and
Fragrant, or the first walk
Halting and freeing,
From the hair in my
Palm that used to be
On my head, to the rose
In a glass that used to be
On a bush, we are both
Changing changing
Yet still alive
Here, today.
Photography Credit : Dennis Haritou
Lauren Coodley is a former professor of Women’s Studies. She is a local historian and poet from the Napa Valley.
