Body Donor

I know what you’re thinking, but not that one

Not the one with nails in his palms
A stone bed in the hillside
Tangled brown hair and olive skin

Our man has a buzz cut and a gurney
Broken bone at his temple held
Together with staples

He is not waiting to be bathed
With oil and the hair of women
Knotted in grief

His skin is already damp
With the spray of formaldehyde
From industrial plastic bottles

He is not laying in a closed tomb
Where even the air
May forget to breathe

But in an old basement lab
Warm with the odors
Of thirty medical students

He is not the one who sweat blood
Alone with the bent trees
And a tired moon

Yet he too lets us take him apart
Hoping to make our hands more gentle
For the patients that follow

Eliza is a fourth-year medical student at the University of Utah School of Medicine. She has a B.S. in Neuroscience with a creative writing minor. She enjoys reading, hiking, and running.