NICOLE MATIS
University of Tennessee, Knoxville

Becoming Patient

 In familiar turquoise—
shoe covers, hair net, scrubs,
 
I never inquire specifics, 
just smile in surgical mask wonder
of what exists in nasal caves, eardrum pearls. 
Each time, I glint at lidocaine stirring in syringe.
 
Each time, a tinge of worry that somehow
the face beneath all those
stacked
sheets
will wake 
                        and reject. 
Mine is reverence, 
marveling at what the body does behind the scenes.
 
I long to steep in that anesthetic sleep, 
to become one with thyroid in sedation.
 
Kneel at the altar of incised flesh, dozing limbs, 
holy they are as the anointing’s done—
naked              dripping iodine
cannula 
                        to cath bag tail                        marked with stitches—
sutures locking opal, diamond only organs
know.              I wish I was a suture too.
To be threaded in a scar          so I can touch both
surgeon’s hands and patients who endured.
To become not skin but blemish without pigment.
 
The ache flares in post-op. I want to know them— 
their intubated throats
their eyelids taped closed
their finger-cupped pulse ox
their tray of crackers
the way their backs stick to cushions I freshly cleaned
 
How do I remove the distance
of a volunteer with oversized gloves 
only allowed to touch what patients leave behind.
 
I’m never close enough,
always watching through concealed glass,
Not quite enough patient.                               Not quite enough doctor. 
                     Give me a scalpel, I’ll shatter the window.

Nicole Matis is a 2020 graduate from the University of Tennessee with a Bachelor of Science degree in Biological Sciences, Biochemistry & Cellular & Molecular Biology. She is currently a first-year medical student at the University of South Alabama College of Medicine. Her work has appeared in Cheat River Review and Phi Kappa Phi Honor Society’s Forum.