Lunch Hour at Planned Parenthood

Sara Emily Kuntz

My thighs and ass are clenched into tight-knotted ropes,
I’m trembling.

Sharpness, the iron scent of blood,
the clean, cold speculum.

I wish she’d stop poking.
The pressure of her cotton-tipped wand is making me cramp.

She snips a sample from the center of my cervix.
I breathe and breathe.

Applying a healing balm, to cauterize the wound,
her fingers accidentally graze my skin.

When I’m back in corduroy and sweater, she tells me
the lab will take two weeks, we’ll make a plan then.

A lump of pad between my legs, the slow fall
of the elevator, the word discharge.

On my way out I smile at the security guard,
and notice the trash can by the door:

red roses sticking up, blossoms
and baby’s breath akimbo.

©Sara Emily Kuntz

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Sara Emily Kuntz has a BA in English from the University of Pittsburgh and an MFA in Creative Writing from Carlow University. As an enterprising copy shop employee she self-published ten single poem mini-books, as well as a small-run chapbook. She has recently been published in Stone Highway Review, Cabildo Quarterly, Rust + Moth, and Cactus Heart. Sara lives in Brooklyn with a big grey cat named Miso, like the soup.