A is for Archer, who delves beneath
Filed Under (Literature) by Nathanael on October-24-2005

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)

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Comments:
Jon S. on October 24th, 2005 at 12:15 pm

I don’t believe I’d feel the same way. Besides, isn’t it a little weird a Jennifer is waxing poetic about the beauty of a fellow female?

Nathanael on October 24th, 2005 at 1:35 pm

She’s probably just assuming a viewpoint, as authors often do. I mean, even though the AF is don’t ask, don’t tell, she is a Major in the AF Office of Science and Research.

Archer on October 24th, 2005 at 8:36 pm

I wasn’t that impacted by gross anatomy…but then again, my cadaver was an elderly gentleman with a penile implant…My first death did more..21 yo m, open chest, so I saw the heart die..amazing…

Archer on October 24th, 2005 at 8:40 pm

btw, a dead body is a beautiful thing..but not as beautiful as a dying live one..I dont think Jennifer meant it in a sexual way.

Archer

Duane Jones on October 24th, 2005 at 10:40 pm

I’m glad that I chose an art related profession!
My first thought is: “Over sharing!!!”
I am thankful however for Doctors & Scientists.

I just hope I’m never the object of a post-mortim (sp?) blog posting!

Love you all (Archer too!)

GrandDad Jones

Eucharis on October 26th, 2005 at 10:50 am

Stunning.

(Why wouldn’t a woman wax poetic about another woman’s beauty? I do it all the time.)

sarah mosley on October 26th, 2005 at 5:37 pm

Something about the slight rhyme between ‘deep’ and ‘beneath’ in the last stanza bothers me. It interrupts the rhymn wrongly.

Eucharis on October 27th, 2005 at 12:46 am

Maybe because if you scan the last three lines, they actually work out to rhyming iambic pentameter couplets?

At last we’d learned the secrest of the deep,
Become enamored with what lay beneath.

That’s really interesting - I never would have spotted it if you hadn’t pointed out the loud rhyme. Huh. Iambic pentameter persists even in free verse.

Eucharis on October 27th, 2005 at 12:46 am

That is, ONE rhyming iambic pentameter couplet.

Uncle Bryan and Auntie Meggan on November 5th, 2005 at 10:56 am

your all weird.

Kat on November 6th, 2005 at 8:03 pm

How do you know Gibbs?

Sarah Jones Mosley on November 9th, 2005 at 7:38 pm

We don’t, we just came upon a comment of his on Doug Wilson’s blog and went to his site. Great stuff.

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