Museworthy: The Subjectivity of Corpses (after Susan Bordo)

Museworthy: The Subjectivity of Corpses (after Susan Bordo)

like legal meat and bone
the corpse said I could not have its cornea
I could not have its heart
I could not have its kidney
nor one lung of its pair

at an impasse
the corpse and I
were basically incompatible
until I took the time
to find out what it really wanted

a little peace and quiet
the right to ignore
and mock the philosophers
a place in history
bigger than the American media

and with all my heart
I would have given that corpse
what it wanted
but as it turned out
a heart was just what I needed

we argued until first light
when outlasting the stiff
I cut the flesh open
and removed the red sweet apple
from the still tree

these days I am doing things
like wearing socks in the bath
and imagining rainbows
and though I have not assessed
my choices lately

I do have concerns
about being human
this because I savour life
and my heart is full
beneath the halo of the dead

BY MTC CRONIN

MTC Cronin has had six books of poetry published, the most recent being Talking to Neruda's Questions and Bestseller (both Vagabond Press, 2001). Another collection, My Lover's Back, is forthcoming in 2002 (UQP). She is currently working on a PhD, Poetry and Law: Discourses of the Social Heart, and has recently received an Established Writers New Work Grant from the Australia Council for the Arts. Her books are available by contacting her at: <margie_cronin@hotmail.com> or ph: (02) 9550 2918.

From Green Left Weekly, November 14, 2001.

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From GLW issue 471