The Head Block

 In anatomy lab today we are faced 

 With the aftermath of a revolution. 

 The French, in one sense. Heads 

 Of cadavers severed and displaced 

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 From bodies onto wooden blocks. 

 The usual coup of medical school. 

 Now we learn the cranial nerves, 

 And meanwhile set aside the box 

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 Of ideas about the mind inside 

 The brain encased in skull behind 

 Her eyes, thankfully still cloaked 

 By a paper drape left limply tied. 

 They cut off her head but not mine, 

 And mine is experiencing the physics 

 Of a feeling about dying. It is gravity 

 Circling into the reality of this resign 

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 From humankind to organic matter. 

 She is gone despite the formaldehyde 

 Fixing her husk like a bug in amber. 

 To the students buzzing with chatter 

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 She is a history of memories we 

 Will never remember. This is messy. 

 The mind-body dichotomy is false- 

 Ish. Give me a moment to notice 

 Her lips are chapped. I stop to think 

 She left her lipstick at home didn't she. 

 Did she leave a daughter? A letter? 

 What didn't she write in genes or ink?

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 My questions swell to fill the sac 

 We zip her into at the end of class. 

 It is customary to let them dissipate 

 Instead of ask, but I turn back 

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 Or rather, I am pulled by a new force. 

 If it is rebellion to grieve, I will revolt. 

 The tragedy would be twice if I ceded 

 My core to rigor for this course.