An Anthology of Poetry and Medicine
Hysteria
—1800s
Doctor, please, must you use that
thing on me? So cold and hard
and clinical. Am I being cynical
about love, which is why you
diagnosed me? O experimentation.
How many other diseases have you
twisted into a female logic, which
is how you nearly para-phrase it
to your male colleagues? What is
a woman’s disease? Is it
reproductive? As in the one
who bears offspring? My, that
paralyzes me just to think
about it. Is heaven forbidding
a woman’s bidding? O horrible
delicate truth, knit me an armrest.
Lift my skirt, why don’t you? There,
are you satisfied? O wicked hour / ours,
what malady suits you?