Cadaver

I watched mutely tonight as a man cut the calf muscles of an old woman. And didn’t do anything.

Maybe it was the locked and refrigerated room. Maybe it was the dead man laying next to her. Maybe it was the part where I couldn’t for the life of me remember the name of that tendon, and had this vision of the Dr. asking me to name it next week.

Maybe I asked not to see her face, as we examined the osteoarthritis in her right knee. When they pulled back her ribcage, and I felt a heart beating under my own, and the chemical smell made my nose itch. She was supposed to be just medical, and yet.

When we traced the tendons down to her bleached out fingernails, I saw them being painted in a beauty parlor in my mind. Adjusting a red hat pushed down over tendrils of grey hair, pulling it away from thin lips that had kissed.

Watching the wide eyes of the kids-that's what we are- around me try to look unfazed, until they glanced at the sheet over her face.

Maybe it was knowing what is inside of her is what is inside of me. And them.

Or maybe, it was the part where I marveled at this once breathing art and caught my own breath.

And for whatever reason, we just stood without making faces, wondering in awful silence.

To watch.