Anatomy lesson

Like animals ritualistically gathered
helplessly mourning their dead
museum-goers congregate to interrogate
flayed human cadavers
 
peeping toms and doubting thomases
peek behind a curtain at secrets
usually reserved for physicians
or God
 
a tense dance of tendons and muscle
immaculate architecture of musculature and bone
skins peeled to expose gruesome-majestic fruit
creation's inscrutable seed
 
transfixed, with car-wreck absorption
between life studies and momento mori
reverent, incredulous, implicated -we stand
mysteriously united.