Fasten

The silence in the exam room

is a wet wool blanket.

I can hear the hum of the fluorescent tubes

and my own blood pushing

against the rubber bladder.

Then she rips it.

That sound—a thousand tiny teeth

letting go at once.

A shredding, violent noise

in a place that’s supposed to be quiet.

She moves to the computer

and I’m left with the red mesh

pressed into my bicep,

a temporary map of where it hurt.