Sam Alexandra Rose

Tag: ct scan

  • radiation

    we take the afternoon off work to visit the nuclear

    medicine department of the hospital

    and in the evening I try to access some feeling and I ask
    myself

    if I cry, will that help flush the radiation out of my body?

    or will it just give the bags under my eyes a buttercup glow

    as if my pupils had become suns

    stop

    I say

    stop

    It was just a CT scan, just a tiny amount of radiation

    and you are just melodramatic

    you are just a girl, not spiderman

    and nothing is happening

    but that’s what burns

    that still, nothing is quite happening here

    no going nuclear, simply stoic

    script-sticking

    I compromise and just a couple of drops slip through

    that is all I can offer

    that is all life offers of anything

    just a little at a time

    just a little glow

    A version of this poem was published in Autumn Sky Poetry Daily in April 2021.

  • Cannula

    Cannula:
    Cannulook?
    Not when they put it in
    Not when it pierces the skin
    Not when you know this is just the beginning. 

    Cannula:
    Cannulaugh?
    There must be something funny here.
    But no; affix that blank expression to your face,
    remove all trace of human. No-one must know
    you’re actually feeling something. 

    Cannula:
    Cannuleave?
    Not without getting rid of this
    and even then, you never really leave
    this place, this bed, this mess
    inside your head.

    Cannula:
    Cannulive?
    Not with this,
    not without remembering,
    not without wincing and covering
    the crooks of your elbows
    (was it the crook of the elbow?
    It is hard to remember, my brain is
    trying to protect me that much.
    Not enough.)

    Cannula:
    Cannulament?
    Always, and probably too much. 

    Cannula:
    Cannunot
    give me another cannula, please?

    I had to go for a CT scan today. So, that’s what this was. (Written yesterday in “anticipation”.)