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.