Words to a So-Called Cadaver
The poem of a medical student to our deceased teacher
Pull my hand tighter — it won’t hurt, I promise.
And so I incise,
her palm lying empty,
her breath and my breath
still, awaiting
some phantom pain.
(I am the only one who cringes
at the marks I’ve made,
sharp slices through once-soft nipple
a scalpel through your heart.)
As I pack to move after eight years in one place, I unbury evidence of past lives, some long since ended.
I wrote this poem in my journal beneath another entry dated September 18, 2004—cursed with the blood of a scientist, I always strove for exact documentation.
A sliver over nineteen years later, I check and recheck the calculation in disbelief I’ve carried the experience in every cell for two decades. This page, too, accompanied me on three previous moves, one cross-country.
Now I will store them away again, in a sealed container I pray won’t be lost among everyday clutter — a mausoleum of memories.
