Anatomy Teacher
Anatomy Teacher
When I touched your hands,
I touched hands that had felt
the chill of 94 winters,
fingers that had stretched in the sunlight
of as many springs.
When I touched your feet,
I touched feet that had walked
the paths of nine decades,
toes curling and uncurling through
the uncertainty of five wars.
When I touched your arms,
touched the arms that had
braced you from and embraced the world,
a world I know only through
historians and faded photographs.
When I stared into the shell of your eyes,
I saw the screen upon which
a million irreplaceable scenes had been played,
visions of a world rapidly changing,
at once both like and unlike my own.
When I held your heart in my hands,
in a moment filled with awe and grace,
I held a heart whose mysteries I will never know,
a heart that gave me the
gift of itself.
When you invited me to know you,
to be a guest in the house that
your spirit left,
to touch your body more intimately
than any lover could, you forever altered my life.
My feet, with the knowledge of yours,
will walk into the future
carrying you with me.
My hands, as they reach out to
comfort and heal,
will do so never forgetting the
delicacy of yours.
My eyes, as they sweep across the
landscapes of my future,
will find in it reflections of
the world I saw as yours.
My heart, in the rhythm of its beating,
will carry with it
the stillness and wonder of your heart,
lying silent in my hands.
-Amy Marie Millikan
Published in the New England Journal of Medicine April 2006
When I touched your hands,
I touched hands that had felt
the chill of 94 winters,
fingers that had stretched in the sunlight
of as many springs.
When I touched your feet,
I touched feet that had walked
the paths of nine decades,
toes curling and uncurling through
the uncertainty of five wars.
When I touched your arms,
touched the arms that had
braced you from and embraced the world,
a world I know only through
historians and faded photographs.
When I stared into the shell of your eyes,
I saw the screen upon which
a million irreplaceable scenes had been played,
visions of a world rapidly changing,
at once both like and unlike my own.
When I held your heart in my hands,
in a moment filled with awe and grace,
I held a heart whose mysteries I will never know,
a heart that gave me the
gift of itself.
When you invited me to know you,
to be a guest in the house that
your spirit left,
to touch your body more intimately
than any lover could, you forever altered my life.
My feet, with the knowledge of yours,
will walk into the future
carrying you with me.
My hands, as they reach out to
comfort and heal,
will do so never forgetting the
delicacy of yours.
My eyes, as they sweep across the
landscapes of my future,
will find in it reflections of
the world I saw as yours.
My heart, in the rhythm of its beating,
will carry with it
the stillness and wonder of your heart,
lying silent in my hands.
-Amy Marie Millikan
Published in the New England Journal of Medicine April 2006