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The title of my confession
is "Colostomy." The word,
cured and salted,
sizzles on my tongue.
This is shame:
standing naked at the sink,
unsnapping the adhesive flange
from my abdomen.
I couldn't have imagined
the stoma, the opening,
red glistening intestine.
Peristalsis moves it like a caterpillar, hatched
from a visceral cocoon.
My life depends on the stoma,
which insists on gratitude,
gurgling, "Listen to me,"
but I place my hand over it,
even now when I'm alone.
Richard Solly, a professional writer and teacher, lives in St. Paul, Minnesota. He has received numerous grants and awards, including the Bush Artist Fellowship and several Minnesota State Arts Board Fellowships. His most recent book (with Yvonne Pearson) is The Way Home: A Collective Memoir of the Hazelden Experience, (Hazelden, 1997). His essay "The World Inside" recently appeared in the anthology The Healing Circle: Authors Writing of Recovery (Penguin, New York, 1998).
Caleb Brown is an illustrator and biologist living in Montana. By day he drives a delivery van, and by night he draws pictures with his computer.
The title of this poem is derived from a quote by Susan Sontag in her book Illness as Metaphor.
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