Écorché

Wax male anatomical figure, Italian, 1776-1780,
Science Museum, London, Wellcome Images.

It’s an additive process, this rendering
what seems flayed so we can understand
the missing surface better. Each soft
scrape of wax pressed against the armature
like a kiss (red for muscle, yellow for tendon
and ligament, white for bone) brings me
closer to a graveyard fact: it’s the surface
that often falls away first, that same
surface through which we learn pain,
comfort, closeness, isolation. Oh my dear
dead teachers, anatomists and artists who
broke the seal of skin in your hunt for bone-
deep truth, you’d be astonished at the sight
of me, your unrecognizable future: this woman
warming wax between her fingers, adding on,
slowly building up her own body of work.