Gray’s Anatomy
Gray pastes up red ink sinew,
admires his map of muscle,
the contours of each strand.
The lacerated spindles
were raw beneath his thumb -
how hard it was to cut
and pin the bloody tassel.
Around his lamplit window
the wind shreds day to dusk.
Sand streaks from the machair
through half-buried crofts -
a chimney breast, a hearth,
grizzled bones and ash.
Salt-dust sweeps in and out.
Each day a detail honed:
the shore-line thickening
and thinning as he draws
each vein, with steady hand
slicks pen across stiff paper.
His pulse thrills, the cords
barely secret in his wrist.
Page(s) 62
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