Anatomy
We did not expect a young woman.
her skin still tight, but cold.
We were afraid to touch, her features
not the kind to beckon young men:
her nose a mountain on the plain
of her face, her neck and arms
thin as dried reeds. But here,
hands sheathed in latex,
our scalpel blades disappeared
into her skin, until we pushed back
the clean lines of dermis like curtains,
her small muscles and organs revealed.
Awestruck, the Latin rose to our lips
like a sigh: the graceful length
of her gracilis, her shapely gluteus medius,
the sweep of the orbicularis oris
beneath her stiff, unsmiling lips.
We were never satisfied again
to kiss the surface of a pretty face.
At last we’d learned the secrets
of the deep, become enamored
with what lay beneath.
By Jennifer Gresham . Listen on public radio. (needs Real Audio)