After Surgery: Invasive

The almost, unsound sleep.
Fluorescent, beeping nights and drab,
venetian-slatted days
of nurse shifts—
crapshoot of care. No thanks,
I'll insert the suppository
my damn self. And take
back the pneumonia,
please, such promiscuous
hands.

And the green interns,
playing doctor on the
live broken doll
with my drawn eyes.
Rounds of them gawk
and handle,
unsheathed fingers
not asking consent.

As if I am amphibian
and straight-pinned
to this awful bed.

As if I am not warm,
threatened by fever.

As if my soft, barely
insured octaves
don't count.

That's it—the slither
of my eyebrow
freezes them, hisses
Enough.