Robert Ronnow

I have a special interest in telling about my colonoscopy.

The doc cheerful, secure in his specialty, colon cancer being

the second leading cause of cancer death after lung tumors.

They can snip the precancerous polyps right out of you during the test.

At first the doc gave me the statistics but having paid 25 bucks for this interview

I decided to make him explain the science. He was most comfortable

describing the physical architecture of adenomatous v. hyperplastic polyps

but what about cell structure I said. He was vague about genes and hormones,

I could have been chatting with an Electrolux salesman.

I wasn’t worried although my ass has been burning.

Everybody dies, everybody, even Whitman and Emerson, so I browse models

            for dying—

mine are middlebrow, saddlebow—John Wayne in The Shootist, Paul Newman

            in Hombre—or hagiography

Plath her head stuck in an oven, Hemingway who ate his shotgun.

Anyway I was upbeat flirting with the nurse, a muse who has seen it all before,

acting tough, which isn’t actually an act

you do your prep and say your prayers.

I thought I’d be in and out butt as you probably already know

the prep for this procedure is worthy of Gandhi. A day of fasting,

clear fluids only, and constant voiding.

You arrive at the hospital one spiritual chicken.

I thought it can’t hurt, lose a little weight, remember who you were

without so much shit and flesh between you and the natural world.

Snipping polyps is like taking electrons to a lower quantum energy level, nearer

             the nucleus, with fasting and sexual abstinence.

The art of total presence and abstinence, dependence on the Other for future

             existence.