Medicine Man

The scalpel is
prescient --
it knows
blood before
it cuts.
Every surgeon
is a seer.

We start here,

just below the neck.

The slide of its

sharpened silver

touches softly,

enters the skin

with care; half

the cut is question,

and half an answer.

This is nothing that has died.

A long, thin sluice of red

between the breast.

The knife, a planchette,

moves from nipple to

stomach, to rib. What word

will come, and of what disease?

Metal listens well.

And who was this? Some Jim

or Anne; we cannot tell. Heart,

spleen, bladder, ovary or scrotum?

The body's secret unguents

are perfume beneath the knife.

Skin reveals its secrets:

alcohol, nicotine, an adipose

on the lung; hard tissue,

multiplying cells. A scent

of something slowly

seeping -- what, at last,

is breath?

2
favs

713 views
2 comments

The author has not attached a note to this story.

Mathew Paust, Dec 12, 2017

I dare say, "visceral."

Foster Trecost, Dec 17, 2017

Sharp writing...

You must log in to post comments.