The needle goes all the way in,
but you’re numb
first and just when you think
it is deep enough,
it goes even deeper,
scraping out who you are
and what you’re made of and maybe
they will find something,
a piece of you that you can’t get
to know over the phone
or on the couch late at night
watching a movie with extra buttered
popcorn and who am I to think
I didn’t need to be seen
under a microscope?

If they find nothing
then what are you complaining about,
what do you have to show
for all the red-faced tossing and turning
and could this be something more–
could we be something more
than bodies who don’t listen?

My doctor’s eyes
are the kind of blue you only find
in the middle of the ocean
and in them I see a long needle
and the chances I will remember
just how deep this goes.