ISRAEL

gut22@post.tau.ac.il 

MEDICAL HISTORY

The new doctor asks old questions
but my answers sometimes change
and it is always a new story.

This year I note for the first time
that on my records every month counts:
today I am fifty five and a quarter
just like as a child, trying
to appear at my full maturity
I would proudly proclaim my full age
nine and a half, almost ready to become
a double number, a teen.  

When was your last period, he asks
innocently, barely lifting his pen
much less his eyes, ignoring
the deep intimacy of his query.

Who knows? Do the sweet 
hormone-induced cycles of the last decade
count as real?  And how do we know what
is really natural and physical in these times?  
When my father was dying, we had to decide 
when the end should be
on our own.

When was your first period?
Ah, that is an event I remember
well.  I was barely eleven,
back from synagogue 
and my crinolines were all
stained red.  I screamed from the bathroom
and my mother came and slapped me,
beaming that I was now a woman.  A clear slap
is a real beginning. (I always knew 
there was something primitive and arbitrary
about her, and then I knew too I was making up
for the lost fruition of all her murdered sisters.)

How is your general health?
In relation to what?  Some people my age say
that if they wake in the morning
and nothing hurts them, they must be
dead.  Me, I have the same woes
I've always had, maybe less now 
that I know more about how
to heed myself, so I take 
a handful of pills a day
every day and 
pay attention
to what doesn’t ache.

We’re almost finished now—
Are you allergic to anything?
Penicillin, Cephalosporins and—
now that I’m old enough to understand
and articulate—
You, the impersonal
attitude of this interview, the assumption
that there is more to see in questions
than my eyes.

But some things never change.

© Copyright, 10/10/00, Karen Alkalay-Gut. 
All Rights Reserved. Printed By Permission.