Janine Joseph
Supposed to sound nothing like this, my body emits
a soft roaring. My biceps, quiet, are what the doctor likes
when she pushes the needle in. Listen, she says.
Now listen, she says and stabs the back of my neck. This
is the sound of your injury. She pulls out and puts the needle back
in my arm and it hurts. The nerves in my fingers blow out
like firecrackers, but the oscilloscope and its speakers
remain noiseless. I say ouch, but it doesn’t count. Again she digs
into my trapezius and the warble she says is bad. She holds
steady and asks do I hear the difference. The signal I pick up
is a hot spring, a wash of chili and vinegar over roasting pig.
The left of my neck is the softest hum and she pricks it twice
so we have it clear. Right there, she says, my muscles so loud
it sops my body’s bunch of green mangoes in shrimp paste.
On her watch she says I’ll be on my feet soon enough.
She is so wrong. My tissues are tuning brown sugar spread
over butter, tapping red salted eggs against a table. They are fishermen
hauling me like a 13-foot-long megamouth shark
up the coast, simmering me in coconut milk—
knowing their discovery is rare.