by Marilyn Crawford
Scootch down, feet in the stirrups, just let your knees fall apart,
in a sexually obtuse manner of exaggerated intimacy.
That’s not what this is.
This is clinical, this is sterile,
this is an examination.
Open cotton gown stiff with chemical
sandpaper against skin,
held against my body, a feeble attempt at modesty
too exposed on this crinkling butcher paper.
Should I shave, wax, pluck, trim, bleach, douche?
All considerations before a visit to the gynecologist
where I will be judged by the condition of my sex.
Are these thoughts irrational?
She’s a professional, a doctor.
Yet, still a woman
she must have her own ritual before this annual event.
A vagina does not define a body,
only provides clues to a fold of mystery.
Is there such a thing as a perfect vagina?
She is the expert,
but it’s inappropriate to ask
the answer, will be not yours.
Too much or too little hair can indicate a fetish.
Discharge and yeast signs of a problem.
Feminine hygiene means free of odor causing bacteria.
Maybe I overthink things.
The air is cold and heavy
on my pudendum.
She cups the speculum for a moment,
her powdery blue hands warming
the gleaming metal instrument.
Only something a woman would do.
You’ll feel some pressure,
as she cranks the handle
to open me up from the inside.
To peer inside this slit of shame that makes me
woman and girl, mother and whore
unsure where it came from
but it has always been there.
The vulgarity of it engrained from birth.
Camel toes, fishy smells,
loose lips, large labia,
protruding clit, smegma.
Perfection, ambiguous, an impossible riddle.
She sweeps my cervix
collecting a specimen.
My cells smeared on a slide
for later display in a laboratory.
I fear what she sees inside me.
My misdeeds displayed like rings,
layered so close the number uncountable.
Will she know what I did last night?
Will she recognize the vile and nasty things inside me?
Will my wickedness stare back at her glowering and malignant?
My evil thoughts, my true self,
hidden from most,
but openly exposed to her.
Under the microscope
my sins splayed out in specks of green and grey and black.
Their movement erratic and peculiar,
maybe they will deem them cancer, but I will know.
Marilyn Crawford is an MFA student studying creative writing at New Mexico State University. She is a fiction writer, but writes poetry when the mood strikes her. This is her first publication.