The golden lion by Fotoula Reynolds

There’s a fire-storm in my head

Injected out of a tube

A dye spews like lava

Travelling from the groin to the brain

I feel the up climb, all the way

Pushing and prodding

A pressing and painful

Insertion of a foreign object

Nature and science collaborate

Thermal intensity, vessels illuminate

Is my face melting?

Get me the fuck out of here

Don’t tell me to keep still

Or I’ll find your mother

And tell her of your tone

The Velcro belt across my forehead

Screams, begin your battle, warrior

I cry inside, in proud despair

Large, square imaging plates

Orbit my cerebral cortex

I close my eyes and see a golden lion

Courage hasn’t abandoned me

It lays on my chest

Like a newborn babe

My heart, which beats so wildly

Carries a lightweight reassurance

I will never view the world

Through anyone else’s eyes again

Fotoula Reynolds is a retired Education Support Aide. She lives in the Dandenong Ranges in southern Australia where she manages and co-ordinates an open-mic poetry event in her local community. She is the author of three poetry collections – The Sanctuary of my Garden, Silhouettes and Along the Macadam Road. She is published in four Australian anthologies and her work appears in e-zines, journals and reviews both locally and internationally and she is also a Pushcart Prize nominee.