Surgery, A Little History

Stunned by the god's "feathered glory," Yeats      said of Leda. How many painters have rendered this                   image, of a woman swooning with a swan. The trickery,the deceit of Zeus, disguising himself. And these        doctors, their downy reassurance. Robotic surgery,                   they coo, easy as slipping into and out of a pond. Notgods, but white-coated, so feathery-voiced        I believe them, sign the forms. Their sleek offices,                   paintings of lakes, of cool streams on their walls. Suchcalming waters I lie back, feet propped in the metal        stirrups, till the speculum is pressed inside, probing                   for what lies underneath: stems of water lilies, smallfish. Scraping the silt. No "sudden blow,"        the surgeons promise, "minimally invasive, laparoscopic,                   tiny incisions, needle-thin instruments. Nothing to fear,"they stress. But photos I've now seen online        show massive silvery cones, spiked bills that angle                   like spears toward the bull's-eye of a belly. "Indifferent"beaks that peck around inside, pulling sagging        organs upright, shoving them into new places,                   wrapping them in mesh like the webs between toesof swans. "A month," they said. But it's more        like ten before my body's mine again, works again,                   though I'm told I'm a lucky one, patients half my agemay need a catheter for a year, even        two, "post-op," and often, they add, women will                   need the surgery redone. We say we're "put under" an anesthetic. And how I've gone under, sunk        down into the murk to remember the time during                   eighth grade when my mother picked me up, surprisingme after school, my gray Samsonite packed in        the Ford's back seat: "We're going to the hospital,                   honey, just a little operation, so you won't have thoseawful cramps anymore." After the nurse stripped me        and tied me into a blue robe that left my bottom bare,                   she told my mother to leave. They swooped in then,medical students, checking for cancer,        they said, and pulled aside the gown, fingered                   my breasts. In the morning, the nurse wheeled medown the hall for the little operation. The doctor        and his white-jacketed flock were waiting, thought                   the anesthetic had kicked in. I was awake all duringtheir hooting, their laughing. Spread-eagled in        the stirrups, the clamp inside, the scraping. No                   Yeatsian "white rush." The blood that followed. Mymother never knew. Shortly before she        died, she told me how, the first year she was                   married, her doctor insisted she come to the officeSaturday morning. Got her on her back, fiddled        with her clitoris, diddled her, his fingers pulsing                   inside her, experimenting, to make her come. The sameob/gyn who delivered me, who believed        women should suffer in childbirth, no need                   for an anesthetic while he rammed those forceps deepinside to haul me out. The body holds these        incisions. For years. And genetic memory                   exists: we carry molecular scars. No eggs from suchvisitations. Only hard-boiled knowledge        that you won't get the truth from these                   hook-scissored beaks when what they do is tear, ripinto you, and maybe, maybe, you'll recover, put on        new knowledge with your own power. Flap back at                   them, beat your own wings against them. And snap.