Mri Poem by Morgan Michaels

Outside in the dark, it snows
snow mixed with freezing rain.
The cars on the avenue queue and go slow
It's more cheerful, in here.
Fact is, due to bad weather
the desk phone rings often with cancellations:
'You'd like to re-schedule? What about Tuesday'?
I've just now sworn I contain no metal.
After a slight wait, the resident calls me in, starts the IV-
I am lead to the changing room.

Inside inside everything's white-white-
dim and white, like the inside of an igloo.
This is a dedicated room, it hums.
It houses the big signet of the scanner
like a giant finger ring.
I mount the step-stool to a movable stretcher
that glides in like a morgue drawer,
its occupant's name taped to the door;
or the rostrum of a guillotine.
Here, I'm the Capet of contrast
the Jacobin of gastrograffin-
maybe I, too, have glimpsed my last of the blue.
'Right here', show-points the tech, patting the place
I'm to lay and up I climb, shivering, (it's cold in here)
the tails of the thin gown gathered about me
it flecked with fleur-de-lys on a white field,
drawstrings dangling flimsily, bare-legged,
and, obligingly, position myself on the dais.
'Move up, down......