Before I get into today's prompt, I just wanted to mention that I've got a call out for submissions for the 2014 Poet's Market. Read the submission guidelines here.

For this week's prompt, write an operation poem. There are many types of operations. In fact, medical operations alone are so varied that a surgeon could put together a whole book of operational procedures. Then, there are military operations and more general uses of the word operation. Some might even say we have a neat poetry operation happening at Poetic Asides (and they'd be right).

Here's my attempt at an operation poem:

"Scalpel"

For some unknown reason, my greatest fear
is needles, or the scorn of my own doctor,
or discovering I've caused my own health
problems, though you never pierce the surface
of my psyche, perhaps because I know
once you emerge I'll be under the spell
of anesthetic (or I'll be asleep
dreaming a dreamless sleep, completely out),
or maybe you cut so seamlessly through
my fears that I block you out, finding that
I'm more afraid of the eyes and the mask
than the tools they use to parse my body.

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