Edited by Dava Sobel The body quantified: at autopsy, it’s always on its back, looks up at me lips puckered tight, as if it would refuse one last kiss. How much the liver weighs, how heavy is the heart, how large the brain. The body, hungerless, all that remains, reminds us we are objects absent souls. I try to animate them, nights alone, when human company seems necessary, the lab surrounding us imaginary as Frankenstein’s—any thing’s possible. I talk to this one like she’s only ill and might pull through, remembering my friend who died of stomach cancer, face so drawn and bloodless she was almost only breath. I was among those thankful for my health who’d visit, but not have to stay. We’d tell her stories as she winced in pain; meanwhile, the clock kept warning us no time was left. How mute the opened thorax, how bereft the empty bowl of pelvis, how I wish our fables, in the end, were more than this.
The body quantified: at autopsy, it’s always on its back, looks up at me
lips puckered tight, as if it would refuse one last kiss. How much the liver weighs,
how heavy is the heart, how large the brain. The body, hungerless, all that remains,
reminds us we are objects absent souls. I try to animate them, nights alone,
when human company seems necessary, the lab surrounding us imaginary
as Frankenstein’s—any thing’s possible. I talk to this one like she’s only ill
and might pull through, remembering my friend who died of stomach cancer, face so drawn
and bloodless she was almost only breath. I was among those thankful for my health
who’d visit, but not have to stay. We’d tell her stories as she winced in pain; meanwhile,
the clock kept warning us no time was left. How mute the opened thorax, how bereft
the empty bowl of pelvis, how I wish our fables, in the end, were more than this.
