Sonnet by Ken Gosse
My MRI beneath last night’s full moon (it was, in fact, between sunrise and noon) to find or not find what we hope’s not there as restlessly I laid beneath its stare. Magnetic in its power, it drew me in upon a moving bed where I’d begin to slide, like intercoursing a machine as its hypnotic pounding viewed my spleen. (Again, my discourse gangs a bit agley— it stared within my prostate as I lay, a private part which once helped lonely parts perform the duties of life’s finest arts.) Though earplugs and a headset dulled the noise, I heard and felt the pounding of its joys while inches from my nose, I saw a line to center me within this womb’s design. The magic MysteRI of medicine perhaps found where my ending may begin.
Ken Gosse prefers writing metric, rhyming, and light verse. First published in First Literary Review-East in 2016 and since then by Pure Slush, Spillwords, Written Tales Magazine, and others. Raised in the Chicago suburbs, now retired, he and his wife have lived in Mesa, AZ, for over twenty-five years with rescue dogs and cats underfoot.
1 thought on “TMI for an MRI?”
Good news! The MRI found no fiend within (and my PSA level has subsided–look it up, if you’re curious).
This was done in March 2024 as a follow-up to a laser treatment in 2022 which reduced the age-related oversizing of a private part not often discussed in public. Back then, I wrote a series of 11 “Prostate Tales,” all metric, rhymed verse of various forms: nine were 50-words each (one for each appointment) plus a 100-word prelude and a 150-word postlude. Had I known about the 149-word challenge last month, I could easily have tweaked that to 149 words without harm to meter or rhyme. I enjoyed these poetic challenges far more than the diagnostic treatments!