(In December of 1895, Wilhelm Roentgen took the first X-ray photograph of his wife's hand. It is said Frau Roentgen was horrified by the sight; her own hand, bones and wedding ring were all apparent in the blurred print. Once Wilhelm published his findings, he insisted on giving them freely so the technology could be advanced. "Every genuine scientist," he wrote, "follows purely ideal goals and is an idealist in the best sense of the word.")
Bertha, I am a good woman - practical and honest. We raise our niece and have adopted her as ours.
Wilhelm works for hours, alone in his laboratory, with equipment he invented himself - no assistant.
I try to make things comfortable for him and the little girl in my stead.
Bertha, when I saw the outline of the dark thing that resides in me I nearly shouted with fear
Because there is no escape from that hidden image, unsuspected until tonight.
I would cover my eyes with my hands, but it is inside.
Bertha, Wilhelm takes his Crookes tube and strange targets fluoresce in his darkened lab
or so he tells me. It happens when he is alone.
The fluorescence is so mysterious he calls it an X-ray; that is, a ray with no name.
An X.
Bertha, I understand all this now, most of all because there is no Bertha.
No. You are part of me, you are the dark bones that reside inside my flesh ...
Bertha, my own mysterious X
YOU ARE READING
Waitress at the Morpheme Cafe
PoetryScribbles sent in by morse code through the ether.
