parts

                        today we have naming of parts…

            …of the body
        a laid-out map
                or on a
        butcher’s slab

            blood streaming
        beneath and through
                everything else
        beneath the skin

    skin-tight skin
        protection a boundary
            blood-shot
        suffused capillaries
            flushed beneath

    and the heart’s
        drum-skin-stretched
                beating
    the rhythm of a life
            its pulse a beat
                marking time
    second-by-second moments
            coursing through

    all our organs and instruments
        of existence
            the fleshed devices by which
                    we survive
                the liver’s purified blood
    the kidneys’ water filtered and expelled
                the gut’s long chain from
                    hunger to waste

                musculature and bone
                    nerve and gland
                the armatures on which
            each human is embedded
                        smoothed
                by time’s own finger
                    rising and resting
                    swollen by being

© BH, 2021

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This began as a reflection on the war poem of the same name as the subtitle [Naming of Parts (1942) by

Henry Reed]. Instead of weaponry, though, I wanted just the anatomical facts.

Instead of war and weaponry, though, I wanted to deal with humanity in terms of our anatomical facts. 

I'd once read someone’s assertion that the human body is never fully represented in poetry - well, apart from hearts and minds and the evocative bits. I felt like digging a little deeper, I suppose. Or, perhaps, making an exposition of ourselves and those places beyond - all the separation our flesh is heir to.