The preparatory purge and cleanse was horrid,
but the procedure itself was almost comforting.
The nurse, so kind and thoughtful, stepped
from the curtained-off room while I changed
into an open-backed gown, then complimented
me on my excellent veins when she returned
to insert the IV port before she wheeled me
to where the doctor explained everything
with practiced patience and the anesthesiologist
titrated just the right measure of fentanyl
and valium into my blood-stream so I might
experience it all with a kind of relaxed
and wide-eyed curiosity. Then she asked me to roll
onto my left side and slide my right leg forward.
Followed by the slightest pressure. How far
we’ve come since emperors commanded soothsayers
to sacrifice sheep and oxen, palpate their entrails
to divine the will of the gods, and burn their carcasses
on a blazing pyre in offering. How they prayed
for favorable portents before battle. I prayed too
while I watched the screen as the doctor
guided the camera-tipped probe through my
colon’s pumpkin-bright labyrinth of flexures
and ridges. May my innards be shiny and smooth
I offered in silent entreaty to no one in particular.
Not rough or shrunken, a sure sign of the gods’ anger.
Nor pocked and polyp-ridden like my brother’s,
who of all those I know least deserves their enmity.
What could he possibly have done, or not done,
that the gods would require in sacrifice half his colon
and months of slow-burning agony in recompense?
By what accident of grace or fortune do my entrails
appear as normal on direct and retroflexion views?