Down Time at the Forensic Reconstructor’s

.
Wire thin as coarse hair bridging
his close-gloved hands, he flenses
skin and striated muscle from bone,
.
careful, delicate as a potter
strips his thrown and molded
pot from the stopped wheel.
.
A Finnish boning knife made just for this
lazes near spoon bellies in the cutlery drawer,
but for once he wants the pristine
.
wire, daily tempted by the vault
of his palm, to taste real flesh.
He presses it to curve against
.
dead squirrel, lets it slip between
haunch and femur, pry shoulder
from scapula. Hollow spines
.
of scallion lay piled to one side
with garlic cloves and snow pea pods
ready for the stir-fry.
.
He thinks Where’s the good in being
an everyday god, manning the brainpan
section of the assembly line,
.
grubby hands sculpting
in the workshop while the skulls
keep rolling never-ending in?
.
Forensic sketchers have it easy
merely drawing what they’re told—
no interpretation expected, little art.
.
Near daily his strong thumbs stroke,
smooth, build cheeks onto waiting
architecture, imprint him there.
.
This isn’t who he thought he’d be.
Even of those few identified, he later learns
from relatives and old photos some had hazel eyes,
.
not blue, or cleftless chins, or pockmarked skin,
and childhoods, lovers, faults and joys
and pain he couldn’t quite imagine right
.
or coax the clay to show. Families
rarely thank him for proof of death.
He goes on to mold the next.
.
He tosses the carcass, skeleton smaller
than a human skull, head-first in the garbage,
arranges the pared meat to pan-sizzle
.
and cleans the tool, rinses away
blood and fat under the tap, rubs
wire to shine with a turpentine rag.
.
Come morning, it returns to the studio,
to lopping off imperfect noses,
shaving twin pinnae, painlessly
.
improving John Doe’s jawline.
Now at least it knows, he feels,
clay is not the body’s natural
.
matter. And the artist?
First, the meal, then tomorrow
back to creating fake fascia, rendering
.
faces of the anonymous dead
according to bone structure, hinge
and brow and intuition. He isn’t sure
.
which art he prefers, which takes
the greater skill, what he was born to do,
what next he’ll put his wire to.

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