Poet Judith Skillman’s “Titanium Seed,” published recently in the Journal of the American Medical Association, describes the new “part of flesh inside” that is hers “to carry through / airports, not setting off / any alarms, they assure me, / not anything other than / a placeholder for cancer.”
She depicts the experience of getting a breast ultrasound, “the technician rubbing her wand / over and up hills of black / and white.” Skillman’s poem illustrates the anxiety associated with waiting for a diagnosis, the uncertainty of the pause that occurs after an aberrancy is found but before a definitive answer is revealed.
The seed represents an alteration of Skillman’s body, this reality of the possibility of cancer she harbors in her flesh unseen. She outlines how the patient is at the mercy of the medical diagnostician, describing how she lies “between two triangle pillows – / placed like an offering / to this Demi god who may / or may not find what appeared / on his screens.”
Writing Prompt: Think of a time you had a biopsy or lab test or imaging done and had to wait for the results. Sit in that space of uncertainty. Describe the experience. Did colors return, as they did for Skillman, when she receives a benign diagnosis? How did knowing contrast with the period of waiting? Try writing about this space of waiting from both the patient and medical provider’s viewpoint. Write for 10 minutes.