IN SURGERY
alexandra isacson
Hi honey what ya do? Joe the anesthetist asks.
I dance.
I bet you make a lot of money.
Oh yeah.
She’s out. Al says.
It’s a shame, it’ll probably go up her nose. Joe says.
Draped in blue ether, nude without her makeup, one nail without polish, she looks like anyone else. Al opens her soul, touches Michelangelo’s God with fingertips and takes the old implants out, one upside down.
Put that in the chart, Smith did that one. Al says.
If they’re not big enough, they get booed off the stage. The blond, pink-scrubbed nurse says.
I just want to rent a room at the Holiday Inn with some girls. Joe says.
Al stuffs plastic bags in her chest and fills them full of saline. Custom tits. Do they match? Whata ya think he says to the nurse. A little more on the left side she says, and he sews her up. He says he has the biggest ad in the newspaper. Al’s in love with the centerfold tacked to the surgery center’s wall. Her hovering airbrushed flesh has the golden tones of Renaissance Madonnas. Devotion and emotions give breath to this immaculate vision. She dances on tabletops and gives money to the church. She’s practically a nun. But the nurses say her breasts are ugly. Al hands the nurse a paper scripted in Latin for the dancer.
Alexandra Isacson
http://us.mc10.mail.yahoo.com/mc/compose?to=aaisacson@gmail.com
The Witches of Eastwick
John Updike