Brain Scan

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.