I.
When she arrived to
Golf lesson day three
She got back in the car.

It was the grass.

Just aerated
Severed nodes, root threads
Strewn about the surface
dot dot spotted with gaping holes.

Worse, perhaps, than the scalpelled flesh
Scooped years before like
Melon balls from her foot soles
That would not stop coursing blood while
She lifted her bandages to
Look at the
Deep divots, core revealed
The presence of absence.

Pick, Pick, Pick
Painting polish to scrape away and skim beneath the surface for
Collected debris
Something to excavate

Baking cakes only to
Hack their perimeters with a knife and
Cut, Cut, Cut
Pastry pits
Never a plate
Always a process of
Pick
Standing over an oven
Still emanating heat.

Magnified mirrors, minutes spent in a fit for just the right
Pick
Pluck from its pore
Watch it rise up, pulse hard, capsuled inner tension and
Give way to crater
Empty of its contents
Any pustule a possibility.



II.
If she could tunnel to the middle of the earth, she would
Gaze up through flaking layers
Impossible to look
Impossible to look away
She could feel it in her spine.

Always concerned with the
Finding, the issue
Only obtained through the
Very root
Destroying the whole in the constant pressure evoked by
Squeezing.


III.
That winter, she had her first patient.


Splayed open on the table bathed in the scent of
Hazy anesthetics
Tingling
Knowing she was
Unable to leave well enough alone
Uncomfortable with the whole
Put off by its parts and throughout,
Instruments in solution of barbershop blue
Shining of halogen flint

“Welcome, Dr., please begin.”

For this,
There was no space to
Admit
On her application.