End Notes
Operation
By Mina Le, M.D.
He cut her like you cut a fruit, a plum
Through layers gashed, its twilit peel and sphere,
But for blood’s dusky accents chasing curves
Drawn by the knife. Her nose an angel-thumb,
Her scarlet-pitted cheek in its fifth year,
She slept, and halothane bewitched her nerves.
All in a pool of light of lambent blue
Her face, in linen diamond framed, exposed
Its softness like Ophelia’s in the boat;
He touched the offering, then dipped into
Red liquid petals the cautery’s wasp. Smoke rose,
With scent of searéd flesh, from the stemmed moat.
Mina Le is chief resident in the department of otolaryngology at the University of Minnesota.