While nurses flank my head to chit-chat,

the chair rises, making space for the doctor

to inject local anesthetic and acetic acid

(vinegar will turn certain cells white).

The stirrups are softer than imagined,

yes there is someone to take me home,

no I will not drive or operate machinery

or cook until I have recovered feeling.

I recite paintings I have yet to see: woman

with a bandage; woman taken unawares;

woman before a mirror; in street clothes,

with chrysanthemums, with field glasses.

He threads the electrified wire loop

inside me and I startle at the sound,

a sigh of vacuumed birds. I am grounded

as the current passes up and through.