Through the Thistles

After Robert Hass

I tell the doctor that my body is a series of tubes, that my skin is seared in gooseflesh, that my shoulders are too soft, my breasts, my belly, smooth and supple and doughy.

She says that she gets it, that we’re all a series of tubes, that it’s alright to be cold, that it’s natural everything is perfectly natural. She regards me as you would a rock of no particular note, not expecting it to look different from the way it is. But I am not a rock, I am a person. I can tell she does not quite believe me. She sees me, or rather she sees my soft shoulders, belly, and breasts, the curve of my hips, the monthly blood on my hands, the letter on my license. She sees these and says to them, “You are natural,” before I catch her gaze and her mouth tightens. She says there’s nothing wrong with me. Sorry, but there’s nothing she can do.

That night I dream that rather than tubes, I am made of marble. I dream that I have a knife that slides right through. I dream that in the morning, she awakens to find two stone breasts bleeding on the hood of her Lexus.