Cadaver Poem

In medical school I wrote a poem in honor of my cadaver, whom our anatomy professor introduced to us as our "first patient." I found the poem in a box in the basement during last week's excavations. It's strange to have this artifact now, after so much has happened - a window into what I was thinking at the very beginning of this journey in medicine.

I wrote it in voices, but that wasn't my idea; I was inspired by Paul Fleischman's book Joyful Noise: Poems for Two Voices, which won the Newbery Medal in 1989.

The voices in the poem alternate for the most part but occasionally speak simultaneously, indicated by lines occurring on the same line or in the center. It's hard to read, and it's not great poetry, but the thoughts are genuine. It had no title when I first wrote it. (P.S. The photo above is indeed of the anatomy lab at my alma mater, New York Medical College...but it was just getting built when I was a student there! I do envy the lucky folks that got to take their anatomy course in that beautiful lab instead of the old one...)


Learning Anatomy

(The Student)............................................(The Body)

Between you and me
my fears and my hopes

Between you and me

my heart in your hands

I am young

I am old

I am living

I have lived

The distance is wide

Between you and me.

How does one person

come to understand

another?

You have touched every scar,

traced the stories they tell

on my body, but my spirit

you have not read

A jumble of words.........................................I have become

a specimen, a chore....................................a jumble of words

an interesting case........................................a body, a case

A jumble of words

A mumbling of rituals

pacemaker.......................................................heart failure

mastectomy...................................................hysterectomy

hysterectomy.....................................................metastasis

metastasis......................................................nephrectomy

nephrectomy.....................................................pacemaker

heart failure.....................................................mastectomy

My hands have trembled

holding the silence of your heart

These hands

They have wiped

the tears I have wept

Want to heal so many hurts

Come together in prayer

These hands

They have clasped a dear one close

Been a part of good laughter

Been a part of much hurt

yet made wonderful things

Like music, and bread

They have cleansed and rebuilt

Made the ordinary extraordinary

I have nourished and created

I have suffered

I have hoped

How little we understand

How little you have probed

How wide is the distance

between you and me?

Only as wide

as your gentleness

I have never been as open as you

This is the most intimate time of my life

My death

To whom can I tell my stories?.......To whom will you tell my stories?

Your gaze is sharp

Sharper than a surgeon's blade

my imaginings about your life

Have you ever nursed a child?

Have you ever loved another?

Have you known loneliness and joy?

Have I really looked inside?.......Have you really looked inside me?

When you dance in a roomful of happy friends

Watch the first snow fall

Hold an infant

Kiss an elder

Think of me.

Has anyone given you such a gift?

Have I ever given a gift such as this?

I will not forget................................................Do not forget

This intimacy

This fractured life

full of possibility

You are so full of wonder

I wonder sometimes

Sometimes you laugh

when you'd rather weep

the folly of youth

I long to be healed

We are "wounded surgeons," all;

with bleeding hands we ply our arts

and try to tie the frazzled ends

Of mysteries and fragile lives.

We huddle close

You stretch far across

and now

your gaze is sharper

you see

Despite my wounds

Despite my many wounds

and the worlds I have lost

Despite all we have taken

away from you

we are yet not so powerful,

not so wise

I am still a woman

I am still one to be reckoned with

We think we have power

You think you know me

But you know the truth

We

are more helpless

and vulnerable

than you

Despite all we have taken

You could not take my soul

You have given so much

You have crossed the valley

of a shadow we don't know

But I fear no evil

for it is you there beside me

Though the distance is wide

Between you and me

a heaven, an eternity

You will stay with me always

I will remember .....................................You will remember

to speak softly

to touch gently

to walk in kindness

Never forget

You are precious, beyond price

Comfort me, then

for my dreams lie with you

my heart in your hands

My self in your hands

between you and me

The distance is wide

But we have held hands across it.

c. 1999