The dialogue arrives in
fast and frenetic exchanges
even before I see the
gaggle of girls on the sidewalk
turn the corner from school
on their route towards me.
In staccato spurts
from many voices I hear:
It smelled so gross!
She says.
I got to excise the bladder —
it was so bouncy!
Another exclaims.
I held the feet!
My daughter chips in.
I got formaldehyde
in my mouth!
Groans a
fourth middle-schooler.
I stayed twenty feet away!
Declares a fifth.
The flurry of squeals
and excitement leave
no room for doubt:
It was Dissection Day
in Science class —
And it had clearly
left an impression.
I gather that the kids
had banded together in lab
encircled around a bench
to open and explore a frog.
With T-pins inserted through
green distal phalanges,
a careful scalpel slice here,
a wayward splash of fluid there,
they learned anatomy by doing.
As they approach me
I can smell their dialogue;
I taste it on my lips.
Formaldehyde reeks
and wafts right through
my memories.
I recall my many weeks
of learning anatomy
via a progressively
dismantled cat, which had
posthumously dedicated
its existence to science.
My high school lab mates
and I had been directed
to stow our donor
— we had named her Cleo —
in a clouded juicy bag
of preservatives
at the end of each class.
But not, that is, before
we had pragmatically
rubber-banded her fur coat
back onto her denuded body
reclothing her at her wrists,
her ankles and around
her back with her own pelt.
There are, I had learned
that year, more than one way
to skin a cat.
Despite our best efforts in
readying Cleo for The Bag
it often had meant
getting a dreaded slosh
of bag juice into our mouths
as we lowered her into her
overnight accommodations
mere minutes before
the Lunch Bell.
Now, decades removed
from many lessons gained in
Honors Anatomy & Physiology,
I am instantly brought
right back into the lab.
Enveloped in the oppressive odor
of that long-ago semester,
I dissect the standing debrief
from the approaching girls
with a private smile.
It’s a rite of passage
to learn about life
through death,
honoring function and form
to see what connects us
and respect our ties.
And while we can cherish
that knowledge
we can also acknowledge
that queasy core memories
are also formed and preserved
by formaldehyde.
