Helium

Outside, the winter frieze has banished all
except the shadows from the streets. Beneath

it all, a final subway train engraves
a drawn, unhurried course across its tracks.

Its sound reverberates through the grates, an
electron in its shivering orbital.

Here, colder still, in the railway tunnel
of the MRI, the liquid helium

embraces in its coiled magnetic frame.
The shutter trips, and I become a flash,

protons cascade, a corona of light.
Etched in the scanner's screen like the Turin

shroud, a self-portrait. The cranial tumor
a frosted silver, like a crown of thorns.