poetry

Tell Me, Where is the Soul
by Raymond John A. de Borja

When we cut open the frog, we found the heart
slowly rid of its functions, its small beating,
still beating then just still. The focused eye,
the steady hand, I understand that stillness
is a way to knowing. When we opened the heart,
we found more of the heart and nothing more.
Oh, we know them by many names -- the soul,
the spirit. What measures we have taken:
You split the lark to find the song; the swan
to collect the golden eggs; when they opened the door,
the room drank in its first taste of light for many months
and the boy locked up for many years
couldn't speak, has forgotten how to speak.
Silence is the primal language, and each day
many are called to remember: the man
who didn't wake, the child who failed to return
from school, the purple-gray body on the autopsy table.
After the dissection, we were asked to scrape off
the skin and muscles, and name every bone --
here is where the heart was,
here the lungs, here the low croak.

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