Wounds

A novitiate, I scaled to reach
The lab, a lofty, high building
Invaded by light in illuminating shafts 
Exposing galaxies of scintillating dust 
Orbiting in gentle ellipses,

The constellation of microscope observatories.

Pages of pared down Picasso dove 
Line diagrams; distilled, drawn cells
Deciphered, decoded, demystified
My textbook recording the divined
Cellular art, aligned, orderly arranged,

As intended, naturally, intact.

The visitation of my halcyon nursery, 
Wonder magnified by retrospectoscope,
Is dissected, by that learnt construct - 
Violence.  Complex as chaos, too simple
In execution.  Occam’s Razor
Blades tear, slicing, neatly, my learning 

Disconnected, a silenced syncytium, 

Destructed myocytes, read: broken heart cells,
Hurt, and spill the galaxy of organelles
As the inky entropy exits page left
My days in the Downing site, intransigent,
Did not battle deconstructed anatomy

The former form

We’ll grieve for later. 
Firstly we are all the King’s men
And, absurdly, I stand again and again
At the head of the bed
With my forearms stained

As if with the ink of crushed berries 

Papering the crack in my learning
And there am I, desperate Sisyphus 
Yolk seeping between my cradling fingers
I turn, and over my shoulder this boulder
Of news, to roll over to you.

I’m sorry I couldn’t

The one that you loved

And you,

I couldn’t put you together again

A vague memory, the pristine
Pages of my dissection manual
Too gentle to confer more
Than, heaven, forbid it, a paper cut 
My name, in tender tendrils
Flowering, naively, bravely 

Eager hands that held yet no injury

And now my anatomy book
Bleeds words; bears blue-black ink
Bruises, broken spine, cracked covers
And, for the life of me, for the life
God-knows 
What gave rise
To this deep crevassing gash

Or this missing page, torn badly.

And my sun-striped laboratory
Has been swept by triggered fingers
The picture-perfect cytological slides
Are cracked; learn them anew.
The CT scans hold Hiroshima contrasts
The Vitruvian man, now in a foetal cradling, 

Remains proportionate in reaction.

This is a new discipleship, 
Where by I learn not why society
Cares less for life.  The cruel, sad savagery,
And mirrored lack of love that strikes
And gores the wounds we clean, redress 

Restore the form intended, rise anew.