Autopsy

This is the sky where it meets
the water's surface.

This is the wet ridge of it,
the line between life and drowning.

This is the glow of embers rising
against the rigors of evergreen.

This is a ring of large stones,
and in the nostrils, cedar burning.

This is the sound, still throbbing
in the ear canal, of translucence

passing through narrow tubes.
This is the salt of confluence,

and the sweet of imperfection.
This is melody, harmony, silence.

And this —

is the dead space, the rift
behind the gums, that hollow.

Virginia M. Heatter
American Literary Review
Spring 2006

Copyright © 2006 by the College of Arts and
Sciences of the University of North Texas,
Denton, Texas.
All rights reserved.
Reproduced by Poetry Daily with permission.

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