ANATOMY 150.01, LAB (GROSS AND REGIONAL)


Virgil greets me enthusiastically displaying his grin.
We meet now on the quad under the clock as prearranged.
Our breaths cloud the air as we talk and briskly walk.
Whatever we do everything must be done in a hurry.

"Everyone should study medicine," Virgil says. "You ought to."
Last year he told me everyone should study the Bible.
Next time we meet he says everyone should invest in real estate.
A year later he tells me everyone should read Karl Marx.

Now we climb the steps entering the building of knowledge.
Now we ride the elevator to the thirteenth floor laboratory.
"You're going to love this, David," he tells me as we jog in.
"This is my favorite class." We swing through double doors.

Formaldehyde wafts to our nostrils subtly as a sledgehammer.
Aisles of gurneys slide by. Virgil talks up his assignments.
"The liver is good, but the heart is the most interesting organ."
Across the field of white blankets window panes flash like teeth.

We arrive at our destination, a gurney like all the others?
No, its tag has a different number. This is a special cadaver.
Virgil pulls back the canvas sheet, and presto! Change-o!
He says, "David, meet Ruth. Ruth, meet David." Introductions aside

she doesn't rise to shake my hand. Still we are glad to have met.
She looks small, and I suggest she may feel indecently exposed.
Virgil admits as much pointing to the cavity in her side.
She has had a long life and now devotes her time to science.

Now he turns to Dick. "Dick and I are just getting acquainted,"
says Virgil, introducing us. Dick and I size each other up.
Dick has got an enormous dick giving him a lot to work with.
Virgil agrees he is going to be a major object of study.

"Dick and Ruth know each other better than I know Dick,"
explains Virgil. "But they'd never met before coming here."
Dick, reduced to elements indiscernible as a figure in a box,
I discard anatomical relations likening him to a piece of wood.

The way out is the same as the way in: through the double doors.
But Virgil is used to it. "It's been great seeing you, David.
I recommend studying some anatomical charts next."
I say sure, thinking how badly I've got to take a leak.

I leave him at the quad, hopping the skeleton of my bike.
At home I strip to the skin smelling of formaldehyde.
But I realize Ruth and Dick have now become a part of me.
I go to work in this gift, my life, of anatomical properties.


--David Joseph