Dissecting Sheep Brains, 1974

Disappointed by its size--I
had expected it to be twice as large as the room
behind me and just as liquid, but it was no more
colossal than a cantaloupe and stiff from formaldehyde--I
held a human brain in my hands: shell or skin, I
thought, of something gone, and passed it
to the student on my right.
Hand to hands it circled the room,
matter no longer knowing itself,
over the text and to the teacher, neither
of which or whom, according to Allan Bloom,
could account for consciousness.  So
she splashed it back into its vat,
right side up,
of course.
Then
we dissected sheep brains
because brains are basically the same,
though the human is holy and hard to come by,
but even if we had disserved Man, I
knew, following my first cut, dead center,
block cheese, there was nothing for the eye to see,
no shards of glass to pluck out, no fleeing demons,
no networks of infinite electrical connection
made of multicolored neon light escaping
through incision's seam, no thoughts, no dreams;
just another slice...and cheese.  And, too, I
knew the best of microscopes saw not much more,
synapse, atom, quark, perhaps,
and it would evanesce again,
and that surgeons pricked for where thoughts
but why thought not at all, so I
sliced again and again, then I
cross sliced and diced it for
the pleasure of those on either side.  I
was first to learn the lesson when it came
to brains and galaxies of night, and I
remain disgusted by my ignorance.


(Poet's Corner,Arkansas Democrat, 1990)