My first anatomy lesson was in the sink:
a catfish, still gulping, not kenning
the mercy of my father's knife; afterward,
he would show me the egg sacks
and other guts. I would nod, eyes wide
in awe at my bloody butcher father
who swam in this world with ease.

My own knife did not taste flesh
until college, when I learned to dismantle
once-living things: an owl from the freezer,
stinking as it softened -- a microcosm
of beetle corpses in its stomach,
maggots in the brain (I gagged in apology
as they flexed, still too cold to chew me out).

I dissected an army of sharks for child audiences;
small classes gathered around to learn
about sandpaper skin, floating livers, electric senses,
all the things that a human body must do
without. They'd stare at my gloved hands
and at each other. Someday, they will unravel
their own corpses -- not without hesitation.