There’s the office waiting room, mostly women,
some full-bellied, some dewy. There’s a sisterhood
of vaginas sitting there wishing for good checkups. And me,
my parts somewhat disheveled, drought-ridden, hoping

for redemption. There’s the break I took from Pap smears
and speculums, a vacation from feel-ups and downs. After all,
so many years have departed since I’ve bled or suffered with a uterus,
or had even a wisp of a dream to fertilize one of my eggs.

There’s the routine, frontal, rear, wait for the sting. There’s the doctor,
only a female will do! To peer into my worn out walls.
Maybe it’s a party up inside. Maybe it’s a sick day—no streamers
or soft guitar music, no gossip or showing off, just a laid-up womb.

Just a couple of retiring ovaries to greet her latexed fingers.
Everything’s so mixed up down there in the female bush, a crossing of organs,
outspouts and dumping zones, and she’ll enter carefully, unafraid,
a spelunker, explorer of the hidden.

Clothes off, wrapped in a paper gown, I wait for her soft knock.
I’m draped in fluorescence, rich with experience. I’ll ride her stirrups.
I’ll give her my fluids, let her clamp in a speculum.
I’ll watch a ceiling mobile splaying stars and planets into a neon sky.

– Phyllis Klein