The Wardrobe’s Best Dressed: I’ll Buy You a Bird Instead by Natalie Easton

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Scarlet IV. Thermography

Without any hesitation but the truth, I bare my breasts
for a woman I met five minutes ago. I bare them

for an intimate act that has more to do with who I am
on the inside than losing my virginity
to my first real boyfriend at sixteen and a half,

a ritual I made him wait almost two years for before
presenting myself without warning, a condom in one hand

and a course of synthetic hormones running
through my blood. She is about to see them: a map
of estrogen and consequence; a latticework of lingerie

underneath my skin. There is no protection this time,
just the fear that comes when my shirt slides back on

and I wonder again what I’ve done. When the results come,
they will not be suspicious, but not optimal, like the motives
of most who have touched me. The heat map will reveal

the yellow line of a vein branching across my right breast;
the terminology used to describe it will sound ominous.

The technician will reassure me, say I don’t have anything
to worry about yet, that things can still be done to lower
my risk, but all I will hear in her tone is that

there is an equation inside me, and I will always need
someone else to tell me what it is.

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