I slide into the MRI machine.
Sleds slide downhill, propelled by their own weight;
my movement’s horizontal, made through means
outside of my control: a man in green
scrubs bops a button, turning me to freight
that’s fed into the MRI machine.
The plank to which my body’s strapped is lean,
with no room for my hands. I relocate
them, curve my palms against my stomach. Mean
and meager is this tract of which I’m queen,
and I have zero subjects to dictate to
in this lonely MRI machine,
yet one small joy lurks: heated blankets screen
me from cold air, so I can concentrate
on my interior life, the dopamine
rivers that unreel, outrush, careen
when, weighing rhymes, my mind starts to create.
I slide into the MRI machine,
a movement teaching me what movements mean.
5 thoughts on “Brain Scan”
One of my most favorite students was named Jenna, so I already felt positive about your poem before I even read it!
I have had many MRIs; the loudness and sense of claustrophobia were overwhelming—but the warm blanket helped, as it always does. Your magical, engaging poem perfectly captured my experiences. You are a word master. Thank you for sharing your talent with those of us who turn to Pulse for honest, exceptional, beautiful writing.
You’ve captured this experience so well, Jenna. I enjoy when the editors share their writing
I don’t remember how it is at the CT or MRI. For me, the most recent experience has been at the radioiodine whole body scan, where as you write in your piece, there was no place for the hands to rest and I wasn’t allowed to rest them on my abdomen! This eternal question runs in my mind throughout the procedure: “Why isn’t the plank made such that the arms can rest too?”
I am going to save this poem for the next round of my whole body radioiodine scan. Thank you for writing this poem.
Lovely. I commend you for making art out of what I though of as a tremendously difficult experience. I was so claustrophobic in the squeezed-in space that I felt like I was suffocating and being deafened at the same time. Finally I realized I could ask for an “open MRI” and life was much more pleasant.
Lovely and lyrical, Ms. Le. I wish I knew of your work when I was having a series of MRI studies of my own several years ago.
A copy of “Brain Scan” should have been posted in those changing rooms with the small lockers located near the MRI machines; I’d much rather have focused on your phrasing and imagery, rather than on that awful clanging noise…
Thanks for this beautiful and artistic piece.