Bring Out Your Dead

It is a solid rumor that the scissors were a gift Given by former students when his back was straight The probe in matching gold to make a set Relics of Flexner, physical diagnosis, and the starched nurse He limps and turns now, collapsing along the lab Cadaver to cadaver, falling on them without a word So tremulous with intention that we know the tissue will tear But we stand silent, because you do not laugh when the old doctor is near We know a good metaphor of death We are young enough to hope “I will be different at the end” Able to dissect the cause from the effect Freed from accepting one thing after another With admission to boundless bodily secrets Not only the frayed limit of control Smiling, he looks up, nods, twists, lurches away Leaving behind one perfectly exposed nerve