Things that Break
by Elizabeth Weiner, University of California–San Francisco School of Medicine
Return to The Bards of Baylor
He pulls on thick, plastic green gloves and says, Some
Lovers Try Positions That They Can't Handle, while holding
my wrist. It is a mnemonic device, but what isn't?
There is a silence when we unwrap parts
and label metal and wooden drawers "Brains" and "Hearts"
respectively. You begin with things that break
not the spirit, the rhythm, the silence. Things that break
like scaffolding. The clavicle, the scaphoid, some
children who fall off swings. The doctor holds
my wrist, lightly points and says, what isn't
more than a sum of its parts?
Look at the eyes ears nose throat. Listen, a heart.
Be more careful, everything is a miracle. The heart
beats, the brain thinks, the wrist holds. Children can break
themselves. My mother knows the world works some
of the time and that there must be holding
on and letting go. She sometimes wasn't
watching, hired a blind babysitter and fell apart
years later when I waved and my plane departed
to a place we had never been. I knew my heart
rode, as expected, protected in my chest. She knows it breaks
easily at first, and then it is harder and harder for some
reason. Things that break and won't hold:
an old hip, a twisted knee, a sob, a laugh that wasn't
meant to be. The first time in anatomy lab, I wasn't
expecting to see everything divided in parts.
We learn life constantly suppresses death, but not heart-
less cadavers, body-less heads, bones that break
without a story. They say it is easy for some
to see the body as sections, in pieces. Don't let it hold
you so tightly, they say. You can still hold
a heart in your hand, and think, oh love, isn't
it grand? My mother says there are parts
that can't be disassembled. The heart
holds me more than I can hold it. Wrists break,
heal and let go. The sum
of my parts isn't more than a heart and a wrist that
break and hold, respectively. The green glove points
lightly and he says, Scaphoid
Lunate Triqueturum Pisiform Trapezium Trapezoid
Capitate Hamate.
|
