Contents | April 2003

More on poetry from The Atlantic Monthly.


The Atlantic Monthly | April 2003
 
Portrait of the Author After X-Ray

by Jillian Weise
 
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 The radiologist forgot to place the shield
across the child's ovaries.

The risks are minimal they say, one
in a million, one in ten thousand.

The lead-rubber hand, somehow protective,
positioned over could-be freckles, fingers.

The child didn't notice until after the picture
was taken. Furious, cheated, she refused

to get dressed, stalked into the radiology
waiting room bare-assed and brazen

until her mother tackled her and begged
her to stop screaming.


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Jillian Weise is the Fred Chappell Fellow at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro. She recently won the Academy of American Poets John McKay Shaw Award.
Copyright © 2003 by The Atlantic Monthly Group. All rights reserved.
The Atlantic Monthly; April 2003; Portrait of the Author After X-Ray; Volume 291, No. 3; 78.