Rapunzel, with Contrast

Sometimes I wish I’d lost it all

as when in the hallway someone

searches along my hairline for telltales,

sizing up my health like a stone

that’s tossed in the hand for the heft

of it. Lighting sparklers in my eyes,

saying, Feeling fan–friggin’–tastic

shuts down further inquiry. Mostly,

they mean well, but sick talk bores—

like a drill into granite which leaves

sand and trenches for ants.

Nevertheless, my hair snugs me

like a cocoon and soothes in the cool

places where I wait with others,

drinking the cooled 900 mL

vanilla–flavored barium beverage,

as we prime ourselves for the big picture.

When the warm iodine begins to flush

my veins—skull to toenails—I feel it

first in my cheeks’ flush and then

in the nether regions—which gets me

thinking—until the voice from the bottom

of a titanium well begins its directives:

Breathe. Breathe out. Breathe

as I slide in the blue tube. In the window,

the technologists are watching.