I listen to another doctor

explain to me my own consciousness

this one with hushed voice

and kind eyes

crows’ feet crinkling and

offering the clinical tenderness

reserved for a young woman

in visible but nonthreatening distress.

 

once I’m sure my body language

and facial expression convey

attentive and polite compliance

I give one ear to the physician

and let the remainder of my mind wander

 

to the Wikipedia page on lobotomies

I read in the waiting room

when I learned of the word stuporous

and the case of a 29-year-old

who after her procedure

was described as having

the personality of an oyster, always smiling and

endlessly pouring coffee into an empty pot.

 

and before I turn back to the moment

re-situate my whole self in the present

reach out to my psychiatrist with

the blunt fact of my humanity

 

I say a prayer for this patient

this bygone oyster woman

whose soft and fleshy insides

were carelessly opened

probed and re-arranged

under the guise of help

in the name of science

with unflinching authority

 

and though it’s much too late

I hold her in my mind-heart

and place her back gently

into the ocean from where she came—

 

teeming and ungovernable.