Ellen Elder: “Blue Nude Waiting for a Mammogram”

 
Blue Nude (Waiting for a Mammogram)

A Matisse Blue Nude hangs 
        in the waiting room—
	lush blue thighs, arms spun 
        in ecstasy, or surrender.


My mother painted the same pose—
        her version hangs in our WC.


Did Matisse instruct his model to fold herself up?
       Hold your breath, he might have said.
       Be blue. Be a pretzel.


Nude is nackt in German,
	not unlike Nacht, for night,
	a kind of being alone  
	with yourself in the dark.


A routine without dress,
	a mother without redress.


I worry my daughter
	up and down, up and down,
	the Rhine.


In other versions, Matisse painted two breasts
	but here he painted only one, 
	the same my mother opted 
	not to surgically reconstruct.


My daughter is not using her indoor voice.
	She rounds an ottoman.
	She understands nein 
	and banana.


During the procedure 
	the technician keeps telling me:	
	Hören Sie auf.	


I think she's saying the baby is crying,
	but my daughter's asleep. 


I want to ask the technician to repeat herself
	but she gestures 
        for me to hold my breath.
        I think of stillen, to breastfeed.


After the baby is in bed, 
	I look up hören Sie auf.
        It comes from aufhören, to stop. 
        She was telling me to stop.
        I wonder how she knew.