The Agnew Clinic

Like a patient etherised upon a table.  Her body, bare, exposed. 

              I want to humanize her and

the operation, this painting which is cold.  Humanize the patient, make her

              less prone.  This woman in a room full of men. 

This woman-patient, subject of men.  I imagine her violet-colored soul

              rising up, leaving the operating room.  Rising up,

rising still, despite the learned physicians.  Free of their probing, her soul

              floats away and she is somewhere whole.  Somewhere: 

a watery scene in which she rides real waves.  An alternate scene

              where she's laughing, a wave equestrian.  Let's put her there

as if she were.  A wave equestrian.  A shell-seeker, wave-rider.  

              Or put her on a cloud looking down on us all.  Amused by

our trifles, amused by our bodies.  Under a magnifying glass on the

              operating table, she's floated away, become part of the atmosphere. 

She is altostratus, cirrus, cumulonimbus.  She is liberated from her body. 

               Liberation, a wing.  Iridescent.  Light. 

She is a winged bodhisattva.  Airy dakini.  Give her a brother to share her

               uncapture.  Give her an eagle to ride on, to ride on. 

To show her the milkwood and silkwood and you would and I would if they

               weren't so smart.  Now rail at all of medicine for the obloquy

of her body.  Her body a tool, exploited to further medical know-how. 

                Her soul rising up like words from the throat of a great orator.