New Poetry by Louise McKenna

CT Scan

There is nothing that can be hidden from this eye.

It means to know me like the sun knows a leaf.

It appraises me from north to south,

its iris rotating with its sane hum,

its hypnotic leer bypassing skin and bone

as it takes an inventory of my organs.

Afterwards I am handed my future in an envelope

with the image that only God has been seeing:

the shadow denser than my spleen

when I hold it before the light.

- Louise McKenna 2016

Louise McKenna was born in the UK and graduated from the University of Leeds with a joint honours degree in English Literature and French.  She currently resides in Adelaide, where she works as a nurse and teacher of French.  Her first small poetry collection was published by Wakefield Press in 2010.  Her poetry and fiction have appeared in numerous Australian and overseas journals, with recent work in Animal: A Beast of a Literary Magazine. and Verity La.  In 2013 she was shortlisted for the Fish Poetry Prize.