FIELD TRIP TO CADAVER LAB
by Megan Denton Ray
There is a certain need to see a dead body.
And once with a mouth like a cup, hoarding
my small curiosity, we rode the dumbwaiter down
into the sick bay, the hideaway, cubbyhole
of mythomania. Marianne with the medicasters--
white-smocked, they ask are you sure
you’re okay with this? I first study the fingernails
of a female cadaver, eighty-eight, hands
bent as a bookbinder. Or maybe she filed documents
at the library. She, female: arterial gem
of the chemical water. I imagine her with a five-carat
ruby on her right hand, signing all her letters
yours in Christ. I’m merely swollen, swelling,
the stranger at her ceremony. Should I use
the top of her skull as a bowl to store her loose organs,
so I may explore other quadrants? Yes,
wipe, whisk, broom. I am cleaner-up, cleaner-out.
I imagine her in childbirth. I see her torn
and biting a towel—calling out through the tips
of her toes. Now, the stomach is an empty bag
made of leather. Ovaries, surprisingly small.
Tendon of the neck: a lengthy yellow
rubber band. I pluck it as an instrument, a song
for the white smock. To throw perfume
on the violet, the jawbreaker, the gift of gab.
Am I too proud in my flesh? Am I ungodly?
There is a certain need to see a dead body.
And once with a mouth like a cup, hoarding
my small curiosity, we rode the dumbwaiter down
into the sick bay, the hideaway, cubbyhole
of mythomania. Marianne with the medicasters--
white-smocked, they ask are you sure
you’re okay with this? I first study the fingernails
of a female cadaver, eighty-eight, hands
bent as a bookbinder. Or maybe she filed documents
at the library. She, female: arterial gem
of the chemical water. I imagine her with a five-carat
ruby on her right hand, signing all her letters
yours in Christ. I’m merely swollen, swelling,
the stranger at her ceremony. Should I use
the top of her skull as a bowl to store her loose organs,
so I may explore other quadrants? Yes,
wipe, whisk, broom. I am cleaner-up, cleaner-out.
I imagine her in childbirth. I see her torn
and biting a towel—calling out through the tips
of her toes. Now, the stomach is an empty bag
made of leather. Ovaries, surprisingly small.
Tendon of the neck: a lengthy yellow
rubber band. I pluck it as an instrument, a song
for the white smock. To throw perfume
on the violet, the jawbreaker, the gift of gab.
Am I too proud in my flesh? Am I ungodly?
Megan Denton Ray is the author of Mustard, Milk, and Gin—winner of the 2019 New Southern Voices Poetry Prize (Hub City Press, March 2020). She holds an MFA from Purdue University. Her work has appeared recently or will soon in Poetry, The Sun, The Adroit Journal, Passages North, and elsewhere. She currently lives and teaches in Tennessee.