POEM: The Labels

The Labels

The kidneys mounted on a rod,

look like a question posed.

One has been opened.

Its interior of dark brocade,

the pattern filtering

everything given—

yet keeping none of it.

A label to be read—

as if the words are instruction.

As though the body requires

a reminder of what it was.

I’ve stood in front of magnificent canvases—

Nothing prepared me for this —

the inferior vena cava

extending into its branches

like a sentence endlessly qualifying itself.

Fluid holds this tree,

it does not erase its life—

but suspends it.

The chest cavity of the other frame —

lungs collapsed into a miniature nave,

ribs constructing a chamber

no one will enter —

and more intimate than most houses.

There is a logic to resemblance:

the brain's ventricles hold their still water.

The breast tissue, removed then placed on cloth,

look like two eyes that have stopped seeing.

I came because the body insists on form

even after it forgets its purpose,

even after the label falls off,

and even after the rod goes cold.

Marni Fraser

0611.2026

Specimen No. 4 | Renal Pair with Vasculature, Sectioned | 0608.2026 | Canon R | by Marni Fraser