content warning: gynaecological examination
Naming of Parts (after Henry Reed)
Today we have naming of parts.
Yesterday we had no idea they would need to be named.
Two students avoid my gaze, peer between my raised knees at my pubis.
Gloved doctor raises his weapon. And starts.
This is the speculum. Jaws screw open like so. Invented by a surgeon working on enslaved women in the Deep South, 1840s. Barely changed.
May be warmed under a hot tap, if necessary.
Water runs. A giant willow weeps over a chickweed pond outside the window.
Now we part the labia: Latin for lips.
Warm, necessary.
Inspect for abrasions, swellings, sores.
Introduce the speculum.
Ah.
Ah Autumn. Willow flares in gust. Yellow/orange/red.
This is common. Vaginismus. Involuntary tension of the Kegel muscles.
Arnold Kegel, American. Pelvic floor mainly. Should subside. In a minute. Or two.
While we’re waiting, note these little pea-size lubricating glands, just inside the labia. Not functioning at this moment. Can you name them?
Excellent. Danish chap. Caspar Bartholin. Shakespeare’s time. Sometimes develop cysts.
Think we’ve waited long enough. Pass the gel.
Willow bows, time stops.
Establish insertion.
Fists ball, roots bind to earth.
Crank open jaws.
Willow gapes, spurting starlings, startling clouds.
Visually inspect the vagina. Interesting name, Latin for sheath of the sword.
Lips. Sword?
Just to point out on the way
on the way the starlings are swirling, skeltering upwards,
spuming dashes of lost ones the wayward the small
small lacerations on the vaginal wall, normally due to coital injury – or birth, foreign body.
A normal battlefield.
You’ll see them better on the colposcope. Pass me the light
light, shafting through clouds, knifes between willow and
sky. Starlings sheer sunwards.
Turn on the video capture. The patient may prefer the screen facing away from her.
The patient may prefer to soar through light on a
starling’s wing.
Ah. Now we see the cervix. Latin for neck. Quick swab. A weak solution of acetic acid makes any abnormalities easier to detect. Yes vinegar.
He pauses, stares, blinks.
Re-checks the monitor. Tenses. Sighs.
Normalities plummet like a dying murmuration through
my Latin for neck.
For the first time, he looks in my eyes.
One bird falls earthward.
Barbara Crossley is an experienced writer and journalist who lives in the Peak District and is currently taking an MA in creative writing (poetry) at Manchester Metropolitan University.