Ode to the Ultrasound
after Sharon Olds

Before you, the body was dark static.
Sure, we knew where to find the bones

how the organs displayed themselves
in the curio cabinet, but it came at a price.

You offered us a chance to look for free. You miracle,
microphone for the songs of the body

before you, what lived under the skin was mystery.
O inside-out spotlight, you reveal all our secrets.

Upon your invention, we danced in the streets
at our fortune—at once-unseen’s dark, fluttering shape.

When I met you that night at the clinic,
you showed me myself for the first time—

uterus a pinched rubber band, a flat figure-eight
on the screen. Lightning oracle, precious broadcaster,

you played shadow-puppet to the cabin wall of me—
you were both the mirror and holding it.

O ultrasound, tractor beam on the body’s field,
you make houses of us all. O truthteller

how lost we were before you reached
into our shadowed entries and turned on all the lights.