The Autopsy by Mary McCarthy

The Autopsy, by Enrique Simonet Lombardo, 1890

The Autopsy

You hold her heart up
like a piece of ripe fruit
plucked from a living tree,
or a gem whose facets
you want to study
in good light.

But that heart is no more
than an empty pump
dissected out
of her open chest,
where the only wound visible
is the one you made.

A wound that does not bleed
though the body may sigh
and leak as you investigate,
the mottled flesh remains
inert, opaque.

You may touch her, turn her,
open her secret recesses
and study all her parts
with meticulous attention,

but she will not notice,
will not give you more
than her absence,

and there’s nothing left here
nothing at all
to tell you where she’s gone.

Mary McCarthy

Mary McCarthy has always been a writer, but spent most of her working life as a Registered Nurse. Her work has appeared in various on line and print journals, including Gnarled Oak, Earth's Daughters, and Third Wednesday, and she has been a Pushcart nominee.