Medical Examiner’s Office / Miami Dade County / June 2005

(lights florescent, gurneys silver, linoleum slick)

enter: bodies
faces slack
on back
possessions bagged
click
case: male, biker, legs torn, tattoos
paled, muscles gleaming
click
strip body
click
case: female, frail, daisy-print skirt, wounds
beneath
click
cleave skull
snip brain
click
case: male, 23, 36 pills,
blue ball-point etched in thigh: I just can’t
click
incise trunk—
shoulders chest pubic bone—
saw ribs
click
case: male, child, high cheekbones,
27 bullet holes, bystander
click
snip heart
snip lung
snip stomach
snip gut
avoid food
click
case: plane crash, male torso, male foot,
female torso, baby’s arm and golden
bracelet, female thigh and ring finger,
male torso, baby’s torso?
click
wrap up
bag up
sew up
bag up
click.

Tingyu Liu grew up in Miami and is currently working in Boston as a consultant. She has been published in Spillway and The Broken Plate for her poetry and in various scientific journals for her past research in neuroscience. She has degrees from Pomona College and MIT.
*Photo courtesy of Iguanageek.
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