On Studying Anatomy

209 On Studying Anatomy Diane Roston What is before me in these rags of skin, human fragments guttered on a metal table . . . should be as much the subject of poetry as the pooling of shadow in a brook or the subtle changes in a woman's face. —Charles LeBaron, Gentle Vengeance She knew down to her bones that everything that lives wants to go the limit. She lived to bellow naked on a dry dirt road split fast by black skid messages that she rode out each hot noon. The messages always read the same, scarred in every crevice of her body's day: leather, fancy feathers, strong perfume strutted all night, then at high sun, stripped away. She was a mama, wild mama. Gave birth to a night-black motorcycle bird, sucked and licked it clean until it angled like a hawk. Mounted it, and rode fast. One day she rode so fast she split the sun, that faithful high noon blood, and with a joyful bellow, soared naked, jubilant, to a gleaming ninety-mile-an-hour tomb. Now, student, to anatomy: cleave and mark this slab of thirty-one-year-old Caucasian female flesh, limbs, throax, cranium, muscle by rigid muscle dissemble this motorcycle victim's every part (as if no so gray a matter never wore a flashing ruby dress). (University of Wisconsin School of Medicine) ...