August 10, 2022Speculation at 50
What’s new? Dr. M asks
like we talk all the time—
then Scoot down a bit, and I do,
tensing. Speculum inserted,
I say, “I didn’t get my period for three months,
but then I did.” So, it’s starting, she says.
I feel the cold plastic, then the swab.
It hurts like everything hurts this week.
“I actually thought I might be pregnant—
but not really.” Highly unlikely, she adds.
Dr. M asks about the man,
and I wish I had remained silent
like someone arrested.
I tell her we broke up a week ago.
He couldn’t commit, she says with conviction,
so much so that I say, “No, he had a wife—
I didn’t know.” She takes the speculum out
and her gloved fingers slip inside to feel my ovaries.
Then I start to fucking cry.
She says, Don’t cry.
She moves on to the breast exam.
“He was too committed,” I say, laughing a little.
How’d you find out? she asks.
I tell her about the pictures on Instagram,
and she asks what I said to him.
I don’t lie because I am so naked,
as transparent as my skin,
the blue veins of my breasts
exposed. “I messaged his wife.”
She kneads my other breast, lifts my arm,
kneads again. What I don’t say is that
I fell in love once—this once.
When he asked about my day,
he really wanted to know, his questions
roving freely, as though they were
his hands. I sit up, pull at the strings
of my blue gown, look at my clothes
crumpled on the chair beside me.
He taught me to pronounce “ebullient,”
the word I used to describe his laugh.
Her back to me, Dr. M washes her hands.
I will see you in a year. Feel better,
she says, then turns to toss
the gloves and paper scraps into the trash.
from #76 - Summer 2022