33 Sessions

I walk Philadelphia sidewalks masked and walk faster or slower or stop to not pass
other people, to walk west and cross Walnut Street Bridge

to medicine, centered, advancing billions, sneak to the basement, open
doors with a square of paper towel to check in with a nurse, who, masked,

slides a thermometer under my tongue, probes and searches until a push
on the third try beeps, to pace the waiting hall beside the waiting

room, pace along photos of Iceland, Kyoto, Bondi Beach, and travel
ways from where I stand and smear a blue plastic pager wet with Purel,

though they always have and always will wipe it with bleach from one
page to the next, and when it carnivals five orange bulbs, walk

to the dressing rooms, try for the room that has been dressed in least often
and pack my jacket and vest and button-down and t-shirt

and pants and leather belt in a garbage-bag fort against a locker,
the left-behind of whoever locked it last, and don a HUP gown pulled

from the wooden cabinet where gowns are stacked, after guessing which gown
was coughed on, squeezed, breathed on least often, and wait in the back

of the waitroom, chairs in a U for a flatscreen of home renovation in Texas, Toronto,
gardens in deep Mississippi, home sales along freight tracks,

and wait where there’s space between others gowned, waiting for buzzes, the same
buzz I wait for, and when the pager buzzes again, I walk

to Proton Room 1 and the trio with greetings, rest pager and key and glasses
on the wet, sterile seat of a black plastic chair,

step to the bullseye dart table, stair-climb and sit, push off my sneakers, spin,
lower my head to the cupper of foam, wiggle my buttocks

onto the folded towel the team provides with loving advice to fatten my heinie,
and they roll a soft yoga log under my angled knees,

further protecting tail nerves from pain, from pinches, from pressing
into the metal, and they put my head under the molded mask, bolt in four

bolts, two on each side, and snug webbing onto my face to keep my jaw tight,
and hand me left-right handles of ropes to pull

a board tight to my soles like I’m standing on a playground swing,
and they put half a blanket over my stomach, helping anchor all

in place, and I breathe through my nose and focus my eyes
closed, puff up my stomach on each inhalation, snorkel dive the Barrier Reef,

ignore the stereo’s Cat’s in the Cradle while the team rotates housing
that circles the table to position a nozzle beside me to shoot protons

at brain tailored by blades while I talked of Granada, brain foamy
from breakfast capsules of chemo, to shoot protons in but not out as

I lie at the center of analog hands, while the nozzle rounds
for readings in languageville left. The team’s talk fades, they leave the room,

and I wait, alone, for the zap of protons, and I see blue laser spaghetti,
the stitch changes with every shot, and I smell it

passing through plastic, the mask, pulling the horn of the nose in wet-knotted brain,
or see avalanche rainbows rise from the floor of my eyelids

in a green-lit prohibited room, or see nothing at all, nor smell, nor hear
nor touch nor taste, and the team comes back and clanks

and bangs and rotates and locks and twists the table I’m bound to, leaves
again, and I wait for snow—and return with you can

drop those handles, you’re done, and unbolt the mask molded for my Calabrian nose,
store the mask somewhere for twenty-four hours, and I drop handles,

raise knees, and they pull out the lifter, toss blankets to laundry, and I roll
to pardon my tailbone and keep my eyes closed until

the table returns to zero position and red laser flashes over the lid
of the left-side eye as I align with center and sit up

and re-tie the neck of my gown, with the toes of a foot lift a sneaker,
pull it on without worries of a careless reveal,

other foot next, step down from the table, thank the team
and thank them again, hope to see you tomorrow, grab my pager and key,

put on the glasses, walk back and change, nod through the crowd seated
waiting to wait, drop the pager for wipe-down, go in a toilet,

wash hands, dry, retie the bandana to guard the baldness, walk upstairs, evading
breaths, up two to 1, down one to G, stalk the ten-foot-

wide spinning front door, when it’s empty, hop in, stride out, pass
the duo checking arrivals, right behind you, walk southwest for a route northeast,

around the purring parking garage, walk six feet from heading-home
doctors and patients and nurses and helpers, walk six feet from today to the next.

33 Sessions is a poem from Brett’s poetry book that you can purchase here:
https://www.amazon.com/Neurocabin-Brett-Stuckel/dp/1969900016/