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 Contents | May 2004 More on poetry from The Atlantic Monthly. |
The Visionary Under The Knife
Helpless as an overturned beetle—left eye preppedby Madeline DeFrees ..... and draped—I lie on the operating table. On this final day of the year, the surgeon will remove the identical twin preachers in the one pulpit by the papal flag and the distant fire hydrant down the block that looks like a vicious green dog. The crew waits for the Nurse with the Knives. Of course I wear an IV in my arm, tape across my brow and ankles, terror in my solar plexus. Team members talk to one another in low Medicalese: capsulorrhexis ... paracentesis tract ... phacoemulsification. The oximeter clipped to my middle finger must be keeping time with my pulse. Something else: a speculum locks my eyelids open. If I could clearly see what everyone else is doing, I would not be here. Masked faces draw closer. These costumes suggest a royal ball, a bank heist, a Halloween party. I dramatize all three. The glass eye of the operating microscope zooms in on the surgical field. Dr. Chen makes a stab incision at the 5 o'clock position, perhaps to revise ad slogans, mangled by weak eyes, on my small TV. Anesthetic drops allow the doctor to dissolve the lens in quarters. That's when I issue orders: Leave the eyelid movies untouched! They are my favorite show to watch as I'm drifting into dream. The room fills with jets of spraying water and ultrasound far beyond the human ear as the hollow needle vibrates 40,000 times a second. The needle stops. The doctor inserts a foldable silicone lens, courtesy of Bausch & Lomb. The surgeon checks the wound for leaks. More anesthetic drops. Tomorrow is a New Year. Circus colors of falling stars. Dazzle of meteors from oncoming cars fades to Seattle gray. Metal patch over gauze dressing attached to my operated eye. My trusty gurney, on standby, carries me to Recovery, body propped high enough to sip my java and order tardy breakfast. Time to leave but not the way I came. Doors swing open on the ever-moving world always and never the same.
Madeline DeFrees is the author of several books of poems, including Blue Dusk, which received the 2002 Lenore Marshall Prize from the Academy of American Poets. She lives in Seattle. Copyright © 2004 by The Atlantic Monthly Group. All rights reserved. The Atlantic Monthly; May 2004; The Visionary Under The Knife; Volume 293, No. 4; 78. | [an error occurred while processing this directive] | ||
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