for Cleopatra

the crevices in my hands could never course deep enough

to hold all the life that has moved between your synapses

and yet, in the basement labs of my medical school

I am holding every part of who you were

.

the culmination of billions of years of motion

resting motionless on these blue nitrile gloves

but what is equally difficult to believe is

how routine this all becomes

so I take this moment to imagine what experiences

pulsed under these fixed hills and valleys.

.

the early light you watched warm the eastern sky and

felt flood your bedroom with its young blue haze,

the crackle and smell of breakfast

seeping in under the door

.

the stories your father used to tell you

of constellations you knew nothing about,

how he’d outline those dancing starry creatures

and point out the ones that looked like serpents

until you could do it yourself

.

your first ice-cream, scraped knee

funeral, and high school party,

leaving home with promises to visit

after finding your own way

of tracing the night sky,

.

when much later in the company of your illness

you listened to the arteries in your neck

throb against your pillow,

thinking of how damn fast it all moved

as the last trickles of western sun

were pushed from your hands

and into the dirt…

.

Then again, who am I to think about

what your life might have been like.

I’m just trying to learn the

arteries in the Circle of Willis,

or name these small grey lily pads

floating in ponds of white matter

.

Yet I can’t help but notice this

three pound mass

now feeling so much heavier…

What was the last of it like?

I can’t do anything but imagine

.

a swarm of

coloured scrubs

your body splayed

like a naked artichoke,

monitor lights and beeps

receding to silence,

perhaps a young medical student standing by

who, like me, was

trying to learn something new

with the weight of your universe

in their cupped hands.