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Inside the MRI Machine

Hala Alyan

I am white       where it matters        in front of the
camera     I am an egg             a cobweb          when
my mother calls        me Haloul       I pretend not
to hear                here I am a résumé                 doll
gown of paper            checklist             piss in a cup
I was afraid          of my body                        but not
anymore           now there’s respect              this bitch
pantyless                      humming           louder than
the                    machine            I am white         when
asked to be                   storyboarding             my own
grandmother      into a                         poem           here I am
meet cute           between              egg &           song

Hala Alyan was born in Carbondale, Illinois. She holds a BA from the American University of Beirut, an MA from Columbia University, and a PsyD from Rutgers University. She is the author of four books of poetry, including The Twenty-Ninth Year (Mariner Books, 2019). She lives in Brooklyn, New York.

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About this Poem

“This piece was written in the midst of an ectopic pregnancy that pushed me to reexamine my relationship to my body, and the way that we carry trauma and joy and recovery in our very muscle sinews and bones.”
—Hala Alyan

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More by this poet

Siri as Mother

Were you hoping for a myth? The fleck of lipstick on a warm glass,
soap suds, a vocal fry that feels like home. Tell me where it hurts, baby.
There’s a URL for that. There’s a 12-step meeting two blocks
from you, here’s a hotline, here’s a Gaelic love ballad. Let’s talk sharks,
the number of bones in a peafowl, which gender is more likely to

Hala Alyan

2024

Object Permanence

This neighborhood was mine first. I walked each block twice:
drunk, then sober. I lived every day with legs and headphones.
It had snowed the night I ran down Lorimer and swore I’d stop
at nothing. My love, he had died. What was I supposed to do?
I regret nothing. Sometimes I feel washed up as paper. You’re
three years away. But then I dance down Graham and

Hala Alyan

2021

Step Two: Higher Power

For a while it was easy as inventing an oak tree:
start from the top and worry your way down the trunk.
Or a new continent, emerging green and deserted after
years on water, the simple rapture of the higheway going coast
to coast with more America than any of us ever wanted.
I guess you could say I love this city like I love prickly pears,

Hala Alyan

2019

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Inside the MRI Machine

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