Tending Us

They fish us from the Potomac in the early morning.Depending on our dress and clean-shaveness,they either scatter our i.d. back into the current we came from,or stuff it into our pockets in no manner we would carry itand pack us off to the city morgue for reporting.If they send our papers floating lonely out into the dark channel,they whisk us away in the early morning darknessin the back of a pickup to the University Medical School.We arrive, still in darkness.What will these future fathers of medical specialities discoverabout our bodies we could not have told someonehad they only asked a little?

when the student in Gross Anatomy finds the corner of oneof my special organ severely bruised or slightly turned upand away from him, will he identify the problem?will the instructor in charge suddenly know me and my disease of lonelinessand flip the sheet back over my face?Recovering quickly, will he say, "Disregard that. It's nothing. A silly mistake God made while he was making us."And am I wrong to guess the student will like his teacher all the more because,though amusingly, he has once again connected all of the dotsbetween science on this planet, and God?

I remember the sodden shore I waded from.Just North of the 14th Street Bridge I walked in and finishedhow hard this life was.

Go on?I went onmany years.By the time I found the calling riverI had been to several other planets in the systemand found nothing.Maybe I could not reach for their hands.maybe no hands reached down for me.Anyway, I was exhausted, satisfied my journeywould never find the splendor my body longed for.

I didn't give up.Not once.I just decided to wade into the shallows and findif this river, this small arm of sea,would have me there better.