Anatomical Poem

The Man With Three Faces

It’s all ok, he said, when the surgeons showed

him his new face in the mirror, I can live with this,

and then his wife opened her eyes, and gave him a kiss,

the first time on his new lips, their blushes glowed.

Well, it was a wrong medication, no one’s fault,

and the rest of his body rejected his map, after

all it was somebody else’s anyway, it would alter

nothing, except for several months he had no face,

and there could be no osculation—salt

in the wound, they said, but she might embrace

with her eyes closed again. But halt!

A doctor found another source, one to replace

the original and the substitute. I can live

with this, he said, our lips could again give

substance to the grand illusion, but they couldn’t,

except at a distance, through glass—she wouldn’t.