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49 Morphine On the table as morphine dripped in the IV, before he floated away beyond care, he watched his body below the heart lengthen and distance itself across the room where the masked surgeon worked with knives and clips in green mist of a rising tide. He never slept but dreamed of good work, loading and splitting, hauling, cradling, lifting, pushing, sweating. Work and love mixed together—fuel and glue of our days. Then the walls of muscles tearing, insides pushing out, a little at first, then embarrassingly, then frighteningly. Drifting above the body, away from the body being repaired, walls of the temple being restored, except for one small tributary cut and dammed for good, thought of all the live sperm spilled or trapped or given into another, love and work mixed together. Out there in the morphine he felt sad and then nothing— never slept, but when it wore off and pain came to visit the incisions, he wakened to it, almost grateful. ...

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