Corpus Medicum

In the dream of fever, in the murky light

of a mind ill-at-ease, it is the tile I remember,

the single row of beige tile that circumnavigated

the laboratory, a tile that seemed more in keeping

with a bathroom decorated in the 1970's

than with a room in which to dissect cadavers.

Below the tile, a lime-like pale green, and above,

the clean white of hospitals. In the dream of fever,

I am there again in the first days trying to speak

the dead language of naming: latissimus , pectoralis,

orbicularis orbis . For some of us, this was a language

we had heard before we could comprehend

the alpha and omega of muscularis . Someone

whispered that the very act of naming was holy.

Cingularum that became cingulare , the cincture

that held the cassock in place. But fever

brings much more than the simple images

of the past, brings with it the smell of the sacristy

and His Reverence standing still

as one of us undid the cincture at his waist.

O black cassock, weren't we the lucky ones,

the special boys who were allowed into the secret

rooms of the Church? In the anatomy laboratory,

my head lowered and intent on study, the smell

was anything but human-the smell of formalin

and bleach disguised the glistening corpus,

disguised the human stench. And had I not seen this

attempt at deception before, seen it as a child

when our dirty hands and mouths were covered,

all hushed by the language of Rome and perfumed

by the incense left clinging to Monsignor's large hands?

Out of one dead language another one rose easily.

Cingularum that became cingulare , cincture that became a cinch.