by Marilyn Crawford<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Scootch down, feet in the stirrups, just let your knees fall apart<\/em>, Should I shave, wax, pluck, trim, bleach, douche? She\u2019s a professional, a doctor. Too much or too little hair can indicate a fetish. The air is cold and heavy To peer inside this slit of shame that makes me She sweeps my cervix I fear what she sees inside me. Under the microscope <\/p>\n Marilyn\u00a0Crawford\u00a0is 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.<\/p>\n
\nin a sexually obtuse manner of exaggerated intimacy.
\nThat\u2019s not what this is.
\nThis is clinical, this is sterile,
\nthis is an examination.
\nOpen cotton gown stiff with chemical
\nsandpaper against skin,
\nheld against my body, a feeble attempt at modesty
\ntoo exposed on this crinkling butcher paper.<\/p>\n
\nAll considerations before a visit to the gynecologist
\nwhere I will be judged by the condition of my sex.
\nAre these thoughts irrational?<\/p>\n
\nYet, still a woman
\nshe must have her own ritual before this annual event.
\nA vagina does not define a body,
\nonly provides clues to a fold of mystery.
\nIs there such a thing as a perfect vagina?
\nShe is the expert,
\nbut it\u2019s inappropriate to ask
\nthe answer, will be not yours.<\/p>\n
\nDischarge and yeast signs of a problem.
\nFeminine hygiene means free of odor causing bacteria.
\nMaybe I overthink things.<\/p>\n
\non my pudendum.
\nShe cups the speculum for a moment,
\nher powdery blue hands warming
\nthe gleaming metal instrument.
\nOnly something a woman would do.
\nYou\u2019ll feel some pressure<\/em>,
\nas she cranks the handle
\nto open me up from the inside.<\/p>\n
\nwoman and girl, mother and whore
\nunsure where it came from
\nbut it has always been there.
\nThe vulgarity of it engrained from birth.
\nCamel toes, fishy smells,
\nloose lips, large labia,
\nprotruding clit, smegma.
\nPerfection, ambiguous, an impossible riddle.<\/p>\n
\ncollecting a specimen.
\nMy cells smeared on a slide
\nfor later display in a laboratory.<\/p>\n
\nMy misdeeds displayed like rings,
\nlayered so close the number uncountable.
\nWill she know what I did last night?
\nWill she recognize the vile and nasty things inside me?
\nWill my wickedness stare back at her glowering and malignant?
\nMy evil thoughts, my true self,
\nhidden from most,
\nbut openly exposed to her.<\/p>\n
\nmy sins splayed out in specks of green and grey and black.
\nTheir movement erratic and peculiar,
\nmaybe they will deem them cancer, but I will know.<\/p>\n
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