At the imaging center, her husband checks in
along with other patients there for MRI or
tomography scans. After they get tracer
dye injected in their veins, they'll lie
on a table fed into a gantry as x-rays rotate
around their bodies, producing cross-sectioned
image slices— organs, bones, muscles, blood
vessels— that can be layered to help
doctors with diagnoses or treatment.
She's in the waiting room, where the large TV
monitor is always tuned to a channel where two men
go into falling-down houses. They rip apart rotting
floorboards and waterstained walls like they
were made of wet cardboard, toss out old bathroom
fixtures and hardware. They stop frequently to banter,
as the closed captions show. Later, a female realtor
will check on their progress; her clients are so
excited for open house. "Before" and "After" time
lapse pictures flash on the screen. When her husband
comes out of his procedure, the show is ready for
the big reveal. It looks as though complete renovation
took only a week— A family oohs and aahs over a marble-
veneered kitchen island; bold paint colors, massive
flower vases elevating furniture on a budget.
Purveyors of fine poetry since 2003.
Damn. That hits hard.