Today's poem is by Judy Kronenfeld

Naked vs. Nude
       

Naked under my sheets and paper gown, I arrive
on a gurney, and, on the count of three, am brought
to the hard narrow pallet beyond hesitation,
surrounded by masked attendees entirely swathed
in green. Their eyes below their headlights,
behind their face shields, make no contact.

The unannounced relaxant has already begun
to induce surrender, yet buried within me,
there's a radiating scream—like the one
in Edvard Munch's painting.
But my lips remain compressed
by the rules of patient decorum.

Gown and sheets will be stripped, replaced
by new sterile draping baring the site of interest,
when I—unwarned—have blinked out of consciousness.
My inert body will be briefly exposed, then
my newly draped one will reveal my chest,
as the bodies around me, sheathed to the teeth,
bend to their tasks.

What I would give not to need to be here!
Oh, to be transmuted! Even into that nude female
seated near the brioche and cerises
in Édouard Manet's Déjeuner sur L'Herbe—
cast in a man's dream of dapper
clothed men and disrobed women,
yet quite removed and utterly at ease,
smiling her faintly daring smile
at viewers, her power still hers.

Copyright © 2024 Judy Kronenfeld All rights reserved
from If Only There Were Stations of the Air
Sheila-Na-Gig Editions
Reprinted by Verse Daily® with permission