Autopsy Tales

By Gracie Healey

When the doctors look beneath my skin
They’ll find a myriad of curiosities-
A body possessed by light,
That wounds from the inside out
In great big masses of color.

My collar bones seal cages for the song birds in my chest.
(I hope they leave them open when they lay my soul to rest.)

My lives extend far beyond the one I’ve left.

The ancient blood in my veins, though cold in this body
Burn hot in decades past.
Dressed in the same porcelain, sun stained skin
Pulsing through the same, love trodden heart.
It bleeds secretly.

They would find novels in my cheeks
Trapped by last breaths
and cats on my tongue.
Hopefully they have enough room in their abstract for all of it.
I had some wonderful things to say.
So many butterflies in my throat.
Wings that matched the ink on my skin.
Great big masses of color.

Death is truly the mother of beauty.
Even the tungsten light of an operating room could not rob the glamor of the stillness that resides
on my face.
I’ll think of this as webbing my cocoon,

And as the doctors pry at what composed this breathing form,
I shall build another.