I Wanted to Write a Funny Poem
About My First Mammogram

Sarah Mills

But it stops being amusing when I get the callback. Nine days. Nine days I have to wait for follow-up imaging. Nine days in an oppressive heat wave, the sun burying us under heaps of blazing sand. The long walk down the hall to the radiologist’s office. The beige carpet and blue walls. Benign cyst, he says, the words unclenching like fists. I let him shake my hand. I sit in the parking lot outside the women’s center and call my mom. Everything I’ve been doing feels so stupid. Using my elbow to turn off the faucet. Avoiding the ocean because a wave once wanted to toss me around, give me a thrill. I think about the radiologist sitting in that dark room all day with his three glowing computer screens. I imagine him looking at them softly, like faces. The way you can see faces anywhere when you’re lonely or scared. I am walking toward the ocean, my feet sinking in the sand. My mind keeps taking me back to his office, where we talk about seeing shadows. I ask him if there is a difference between empty and open. I tell him that I wear socks to bed because my feet feel sad without them.