poetry alert

Memento Homo Quod Cinis Est
(Remember, O Man, that you are Dust)

Standing in the dissection suite,
scrubbbed and gloved
(as if latex were protection
from the knowledge of one's own mortality)
I map out veins and tributaries,
tease out secret nerves
and contemplate the possibilities
of the awful glory of God
made manifest even here.

Skinned one,
Dismembered kindred, I too
have had someone
saw through my pelvis; I have been
the lovely assistant
split in two,
still smiling as the blood begins to flow.
I too have had someone finger my heart,
probe the chambers and valves,
Squeeze it like a child's toy and not
the seat of the soul that it is, that delicate tether
Binding body to earth.

Today we skinned your left hand,
removing a lifetime of jingled quarters
and turned pages;
today we stripped away
the last time you held your wife's face in your hands,
those familiar caresses as much a part of you
as that thin skin,
those ridged white gloves.

Despite the things
that have been lost,
the loves and longings wrenched
from between my fingers,
I am still able to hold on; am not yet
so far beyond the grip of grace
they might not be restored, or found anew.
I covered you, washed my hands, and as I washed
said a small prayer of thanks
for my small life,
and yours.