Inside the MRI Machine
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
Copyright © 2019 by Hala Alyan. Originally published in Poem-a-Day on May 14, 2019, by the Academy of American Poets
“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
Hala Alyan
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.