corporis fabrica
outline of a nose
and small small hands; strange with their
finger pads still left on. the skin shrunk, discoloured,
warm pink faded to a thick latex glove yellow
this is the biceps - see the two heads? she lifts it with tweezers
and the smallness hits me harder than the
heady formaldehyde vapours.
thickness of two of my small fingers, the once powerful arms
lost in death.
everything neatly in parts, bento box
of a cavern for our thorax
(the word itself, insectile, calling to my vision
hard, yellowblack wasp bodies
not this - ribs jutting upwards delicate assembly
of red and cream)
heart, losing all of its redness
kidneys; apricots in their hollows
i can not read the bodies yet, and i
stand held up by the hands of my ignorance,
calm.
there is no skin, nothing to bear the evident
marks of living (with the exception of those
finger tips. i avoid looking)
and i don't touch, i don't know,
the marks the muscles make on bones.
to see if this one
was a carpenter and this one a swimmer,
right handed, paraplegic, walking with a limp
short days ago, we lived, felt dawn
saw sunset glow
[loved and were loved?]
soak
the mona lisa in formaldehyde
for 25 hours. and this is what you will
see. something of former beauty.
something dead.
this is the brachial plexus, see it branching? she
enunciates the "ch", germanically.
the strings for the brilliant puppetry of chopin preludes
and cradling a face, in love
rubbery. taught. the sound of grinding gears
in a broken music box.
if i pull this tendon, see the fingers, they move
up, down, up,
down,
up.
and small small hands; strange with their
finger pads still left on. the skin shrunk, discoloured,
warm pink faded to a thick latex glove yellow
this is the biceps - see the two heads? she lifts it with tweezers
and the smallness hits me harder than the
heady formaldehyde vapours.
thickness of two of my small fingers, the once powerful arms
lost in death.
everything neatly in parts, bento box
of a cavern for our thorax
(the word itself, insectile, calling to my vision
hard, yellowblack wasp bodies
not this - ribs jutting upwards delicate assembly
of red and cream)
heart, losing all of its redness
kidneys; apricots in their hollows
i can not read the bodies yet, and i
stand held up by the hands of my ignorance,
calm.
there is no skin, nothing to bear the evident
marks of living (with the exception of those
finger tips. i avoid looking)
and i don't touch, i don't know,
the marks the muscles make on bones.
to see if this one
was a carpenter and this one a swimmer,
right handed, paraplegic, walking with a limp
short days ago, we lived, felt dawn
saw sunset glow
[loved and were loved?]
soak
the mona lisa in formaldehyde
for 25 hours. and this is what you will
see. something of former beauty.
something dead.
this is the brachial plexus, see it branching? she
enunciates the "ch", germanically.
the strings for the brilliant puppetry of chopin preludes
and cradling a face, in love
rubbery. taught. the sound of grinding gears
in a broken music box.
if i pull this tendon, see the fingers, they move
up, down, up,
down,
up.