Self-portrait at Women’s Health Clinic, with Nail Stickers

I tell the specialist I'm exhausted. Not the ordinary 
kind of tired but a tired that feels bone-deep, comes on
suddenly and without warning hands me gears to a machine 
I'm now supposed to steer indefinitely. I grit my teeth 

just to get through the day. I'm tired not because  
I had one too many salt-rimmed drinks, or binged

episode after episode of Grantchester. She scrolls 
through my files, and my history pops up like an old
neighborhood: biopsy fifteen years ago, atypical 
breast hyperplasia. Menopause, the threshold  

I passed, lined with night sweats and mood swings. 
She says this late, hormone replacement won't help;

and in fact might increase the risk for strokes, 
heart attack, cancer. What can help? I ask. I still 
have so many things I want to do! She says I'll have 
to discuss this further with my primary care doctor, 

explore other avenues. Then— just like that— she pauses
over my hands. Where did you get your nails done? 

I tell her they're stickers, a set my daughter ordered
online from Japan. No gel, no ammonia, and they last 
at least two weeks. She calls in the resident and 
the assistants, delighted. They marvel at the gloss

and artful gradations of color. It's as if I've become 
a wonder, an amazing specimen instead of just another 

problematic body. She apologizes for not being more
helpful but thanks me for teaching her something new. 
I walk back to the parking garage, my tired body   
somehow still capable of offering beauty.