An electronic image depicts fractures
in your parietal bone. Another, the slight twist
and a minor chip in your pelvis. Weeks after,
a third uncovers a displaced metatarsal. Looking
over the radiologist’s shoulder,
I imagine these ephemeral remnants
as X-ray films from the fifties,
rather than ones and zeroes—
everlasting digital pixels. If we lived
then, somewhere like the Soviet Union,
some desperate stilyagi would dig
through the hospital waste bin,
find your bone negatives, trim
them to crude discs, burn a center
hole with a cigarette and etch into
them an old Chuck Berry track
or the gyrating stylings
of Heartbreak Hotel. Censorship
becomes beautiful when traded
underground and forbidden; temporal
as our shells—your healing breaks
and scar recordings—bone music
from beneath skin. The needle
skips as you lie quiet. I strain
for sounds of recovery, the next
hovering verse. If only I could place
the weight
of a penny and hear your song.
Trish Hopkinson is author of three chapbooks and has been published in several anthologies and journals. She is a product director by profession and resides in Utah with her handsome husband and their two outstanding children. You can follow Hopkinson on her blog where she shares information on how to write, publish, and participate in the greater poetry community at http://trishhopkinson.com/.