Our Souls Are Sad to Death


    In the first month of the year


    ?our bodies wasted. Skin hugging close


    to pebble-studded livers, sucking in toward holes


    ?where stomachs once resided. We tried to remedy.


    We called for transplantation. When that failed,


    ?we bought the bodies ourselves.


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    Egyptian boy from 212 CE.


    ?We pulled ourselves apart and filled the gaps with rubbing


    fat; with tendon strands and powdered caps of


    ?moss, plucked from flesh made wet


    by travel. Through sympathetic connection


    ?we healed our gouted phalanges and replaced our waifish


    blood with strangers’ pitch. Coated our faces with hemlock and opium,


    ?before, enlightened and preserved, we ground the boy


    down, selling remnants to apothecaries and making


    ?gifts of once-worn wrappings.


    Now we tend to our health.


    ?Keep up our carcasses, broken with


    ??restless nights and unquiet days. We take the king’s drops and drink


    ???the chocolate, and when our souls are sad to death, we run and we play with the children.