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# Lab
- URL: https://dianaludwick.com/lab/
- Published: 2026-03-06T17:51:00.000Z
- Updated: 2026-10-24T20:11:04.000Z
- Description: “Lab” a brief glimpse of Friday afternoon chatter post-dissection, and a core memory triggered by the conversation. written March 6, poem 065 in a series of 365 poems written by Diana Ludwick in 2026. Photo by Diana Ludwick (c) 2026.
- Author: Diana Ludwick
- Tags: 2026 Poetry Challenge, Dry Humor, Humor, Poems, Anatomy, Core Memories, Dissection, Generations, Girls, Lab, Learning, Middle School, parenting, Physiology, Scents, Science, #Migrated-1792872215677, #wp, #wp-post, #Import 2026-10-24 20:03

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.