THE MORGUE PHOTOGRAPHS
After Andres Serrano
A red sheet is draped over the face
of the homicide victim with an autopsy
scar like a wishbone sewn into his chest.
A blue sheet covers the eyes
of the woman who was mauled
by four Great Danes, white gauze
an ER nurse wrapped around her neck,
is proof someone tried to save her.
Another woman has died from an AIDS-
tainted blood transfusion, her face
is swathed in a yellow sheet,
only showing her left eye, set deep
in the socket. Postmortem, the iris
relaxes and through the pupil a black
void emerges. Everything but the arm
of the man who burned alive
in a plane crash is covered, his skin
like raw mahogany. The face
of his metal wristwatch is gone, as if to say
the time we leave is not as important
as the circumstances that take us.
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Carleigh Takemoto is an MFA student at California State
University, Fresno. Her poems have been published in several local journals and
magazines. In 2011, Carleigh was the runner-up for The Larry Levis Poetry
Prize, judged by Philip Levine. In April of 2014, her poem “Plastination” will
appear in The White Stag Journal.
