A DOUBT BEYOND CERTAINTY

by Sophia Valesca Görgens

 

 

Imagine the surgeon’s knife in your hand
and how many years of school in your head.
There are books, dozens of them
lining your shelf, not a speck of dust,
for how many evenings have you spent
burning diagrams and foreign words
into that pliable, must be gifted mind
by lamplight, by sunshine, by all hours
past all desire of sleep or a cooked meal.
When you take that cool blade, grasp it,
suddenly not a single syllable remains.
Forget procedures and mentors. All you know
is that before you lies the human flesh
and when you cut, it will bleed.

 

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