Privacy

“Pull your pants down to your thighs,
lay down on the glass slab, breathe
but lie perfectly still—it
won’t hurt; the machine will weave
around—shoot front, back, both sides.”
Like fresh kill marked for butcher
I lie, pelvis lined and drawn.
Eyes closed, I become the picture
of a Jane Doe cadaver:
an alert cadaver, still
breathing, hands entwined on chest,
feet bound, privates exposed.  I lie, still,
absorb Marie Curie’s lamb
of sacrifice. Her dying
from radium becomes my life
through radiation. There, lying,
daily, it enters me:  front,
back, left side, right side. 
Pubic hairs frizz and fall
from my naked groin, glide
off the glass altar. I rise
remembering their first curls
when I changed clothes in private,
hiding them from other girls.

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