final shot 

Judith Shaw

CN: torture, domestic violence, fear of being buried alive

please wait        radiographers will
confirm         he slides me into the
machine       white roof      an inch
above my face         close my eyes   
my mother was afraid of        this
scan will be     being buried alive    
two minutes              please wait   
made   me       promise to cut her
throat           try to remember the
science                      protons spin  
magnetic field        crashing noise  
Matty Groves            he struck his
wife right through the heart  and
pinned her against the wall     he
jolts this scan      me   further in    
will be three minutes    please
wait  daren’t breathe too  deeply
hard    surface      hurts  my back  
they’d   tie   bells to    the toes of
corpses        French for still life is
nature morte panic button  rests
on my chest           why does this
have to be so noisy     atoms line
up                a grave a grave Lord
Donald cried to put these lovers
in        pain in my back        Peter
started with back pain         then
cancer       that last visit to Great
Dixter     when he had to give up   
this scan will        and go home   
be six minutes        please wait 
The Pit and the Pendulum  ends
with      a woman      gagged and
trapped           in an iron maiden   
characters  agree to lock up the
cellar for ever     final shot    her
staring eyes

The Science

This poem was inspired by undergoing a Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) scan. I explored the science behind it and learned that the scanner creates a powerful magnetic field to align atoms in the body, then uses pulses of radio waves to disturb this alignment. As the atoms return to position, they emit signals used to build detailed images of internal structures. Despite its clinical precision, MRI can provoke intense anxiety – an NHS study found that nearly 37% of patients experience anxiety during a scan, and 5–15% do not complete it. Lying motionless in a confined space, while unseen forces reorder your very atoms, can evoke a disorienting sense of chaos and vulnerability. The poem’s violent imagery emerged from that visceral experience – the clash between the body’s imposed stillness and the mind’s spiralling panic, between medical order and emotional disorder. It is an attempt to capture the internal violence of fear when confronted with a procedure that is, paradoxically, both passive and deeply invasive.

The Poet

Judith Shaw lives in St Leonards on Sea and works as a psychotherapist and educational specialist supporting people who are neurodivergent. Her poetry has been published in magazines including The Frogmore Papers and Black Iris. She was shortlisted for the Ginkgo Prize and AONB Best Poem of Landscape, 2022, and won Hastings Book Festival Sussex Prize for Poetry, 2023. One of her poems is in Ten Poems about Getting Older by Candlestick Press and her work appears in the 2025 Live Canon Anthology. She graduated with distinction from the MA in Writing Poetry at the Poetry School/Newcastle University.

Next poem: From One, Came Two by Umael Qudrat