X-Ray
Like white chalk rubbings made in haste and thickly,
pneumonia buys up acreage in your lungs.
One square inch here, one there: it fills its canvas quickly,
like white chalk rubbings made in haste. And thickly
erupts the sound of coughing as you sickly
indent your mattress once the X-ray’s done.
Like white chalk rubbings made in haste and thickly,
pneumonia buys up acreage in your lungs.
We take an image of your chest each day,
record the shadow patterns. Shifts of light
made all the difference to the haystacks of Monet;
we take an image of your chest each day,
then pore the pictures threadbare: is this gray
less dark than yesterday, that one more white?
We take an image of your chest each day,
record the shadow patterns, shifts of light.
–April 2020
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Jenna Le is the author of Six Rivers (NYQ Books, 2011) and A History of the Cetacean American Diaspora (Indolent Books, 2017), the latter of which won Second Place in the Elgin Awards. She was selected by Marilyn Nelson as winner of Poetry By The Sea’s inaugural sonnet competition. Her poetry appears in AGNI, Denver Quarterly, Los Angeles Review, Massachusetts Review, Michigan Quarterly Review, Pleiades, Poet Lore, West Branch, and elsewhere. She works as a physician and educator.
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