<html aria-label="message body"><head><meta http-equiv="content-type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8"></head><body style="overflow-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; line-break: after-white-space;"><h2 style="box-sizing: border-box; margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 0.6rem; font-weight: 500; line-height: 1.2; caret-color: rgb(52, 52, 52); color: rgb(52, 52, 52); font-size: 25px;"><font size="5" style="font-size: 22px;">On Learning to Dissect Fetal Pigs</font></h2><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 1rem; caret-color: rgb(52, 52, 52); color: rgb(52, 52, 52); font-size: 16px;"><font size="5" style="font-size: 22px;"> </font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 1rem; caret-color: rgb(52, 52, 52); color: rgb(52, 52, 52); font-size: 16px;"><font size="5" style="font-size: 22px;">i want back my rocking chairs,</font></p><font size="5" style="font-size: 22px;"><br style="box-sizing: border-box; caret-color: rgb(52, 52, 52); color: rgb(52, 52, 52);"></font><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 1rem; caret-color: rgb(52, 52, 52); color: rgb(52, 52, 52); font-size: 16px;"><font size="5" style="font-size: 22px;">solipsist sunsets,</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 1rem; caret-color: rgb(52, 52, 52); color: rgb(52, 52, 52); font-size: 16px;"><span class="long-line" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-indent: -32px; margin-left: 32px; display: inline-block;"><font size="5" style="font-size: 22px;">& coastal jungle sounds that are tercets from cicadas and pentameter from the hairy legs of cockroaches.</font></span></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 1rem; caret-color: rgb(52, 52, 52); color: rgb(52, 52, 52); font-size: 16px;"><font size="5" style="font-size: 22px;"> </font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 1rem; caret-color: rgb(52, 52, 52); color: rgb(52, 52, 52); font-size: 16px;"><font size="5" style="font-size: 22px;">i’ve donated bibles to thrift stores</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 1rem; caret-color: rgb(52, 52, 52); color: rgb(52, 52, 52); font-size: 16px;"><font size="5" style="font-size: 22px;">(mashed them in plastic trash bags with an acidic himalayan salt lamp—</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 1rem; caret-color: rgb(52, 52, 52); color: rgb(52, 52, 52); font-size: 16px;"><span class="long-line" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-indent: -32px; margin-left: 32px; display: inline-block;"><font size="5" style="font-size: 22px;">the post-baptism bibles, the ones plucked from street corners from the meaty hands of zealots, the dumbed-down, easy-to-read, parasitic kind):</font></span></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 1rem; caret-color: rgb(52, 52, 52); color: rgb(52, 52, 52); font-size: 16px;"><font size="5" style="font-size: 22px;"> </font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 1rem; caret-color: rgb(52, 52, 52); color: rgb(52, 52, 52); font-size: 16px;"><span class="long-line" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-indent: -32px; margin-left: 32px; display: inline-block;"><font size="5" style="font-size: 22px;">remember more the slick rubber smell of high gloss biology textbook pictures; they burned the hairs inside my nostrils,</font></span></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 1rem; caret-color: rgb(52, 52, 52); color: rgb(52, 52, 52); font-size: 16px;"><font size="5" style="font-size: 22px;">& salt & ink that rubbed off on my palms.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 1rem; caret-color: rgb(52, 52, 52); color: rgb(52, 52, 52); font-size: 16px;"><span class="long-line" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-indent: -32px; margin-left: 32px; display: inline-block;"><font size="5" style="font-size: 22px;">under clippings of the moon at two forty five AM I study&repeat</font></span></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 1rem; caret-color: rgb(52, 52, 52); color: rgb(52, 52, 52); font-size: 16px;"><font size="5" style="font-size: 22px;"> ribosome</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 1rem; caret-color: rgb(52, 52, 52); color: rgb(52, 52, 52); font-size: 16px;"><font size="5" style="font-size: 22px;"> endoplasmic—</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 1rem; caret-color: rgb(52, 52, 52); color: rgb(52, 52, 52); font-size: 16px;"><font size="5" style="font-size: 22px;"> lactic acid</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 1rem; caret-color: rgb(52, 52, 52); color: rgb(52, 52, 52); font-size: 16px;"><font size="5" style="font-size: 22px;"> stamen</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 1rem; caret-color: rgb(52, 52, 52); color: rgb(52, 52, 52); font-size: 16px;"><font size="5" style="font-size: 22px;"> </font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 1rem; caret-color: rgb(52, 52, 52); color: rgb(52, 52, 52); font-size: 16px;"><font size="5" style="font-size: 22px;">at the IHOP on the corner of powers and stetson hills—</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 1rem; caret-color: rgb(52, 52, 52); color: rgb(52, 52, 52); font-size: 16px;"><font size="5" style="font-size: 22px;"> </font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 1rem; caret-color: rgb(52, 52, 52); color: rgb(52, 52, 52); font-size: 16px;"><span class="long-line" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-indent: -32px; margin-left: 32px; display: inline-block;"><font size="5" style="font-size: 22px;">i repeated & scribbled until it picked its way & stagnated somewhere i can’t point to anymore, maybe my gut—</font></span></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 1rem; caret-color: rgb(52, 52, 52); color: rgb(52, 52, 52); font-size: 16px;"><span class="long-line" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-indent: -32px; margin-left: 32px; display: inline-block;"><font size="5" style="font-size: 22px;">maybe there in-between my pancreas & large intestine is the piddly brook of my soul.</font></span></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 1rem; caret-color: rgb(52, 52, 52); color: rgb(52, 52, 52); font-size: 16px;"><font size="5" style="font-size: 22px;"> </font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 1rem; caret-color: rgb(52, 52, 52); color: rgb(52, 52, 52); font-size: 16px;"><span class="long-line" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-indent: -32px; margin-left: 32px; display: inline-block;"><font size="5" style="font-size: 22px;">it’s the ruler by which i reduce all things now; hard-edged & splintering from knowledge that used to sit, a cloth against fevered forehead.</font></span></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 1rem; caret-color: rgb(52, 52, 52); color: rgb(52, 52, 52); font-size: 16px;"><span class="long-line" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-indent: -32px; margin-left: 32px; display: inline-block;"><font size="5" style="font-size: 22px;">can i let them both be? this fickle faith and this college science that heckles from the back of the classroom</font></span></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 1rem; caret-color: rgb(52, 52, 52); color: rgb(52, 52, 52); font-size: 16px;"><font size="5" style="font-size: 22px;"> </font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 1rem; caret-color: rgb(52, 52, 52); color: rgb(52, 52, 52); font-size: 16px;"><font size="5" style="font-size: 22px;"> </font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 1rem; caret-color: rgb(52, 52, 52); color: rgb(52, 52, 52); font-size: 16px;"><font size="5" style="font-size: 22px;"> now i can’t believe—</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 1rem; caret-color: rgb(52, 52, 52); color: rgb(52, 52, 52); font-size: 16px;"><font size="5" style="font-size: 22px;"> that the bible and qur’an and bhagavad gita are sliding long hairs behind my ear like mom used to & exhaling from their mouths <em style="box-sizing: border-box;">“make room for wonder”</em>—</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 1rem; caret-color: rgb(52, 52, 52); color: rgb(52, 52, 52); font-size: 16px;"><font size="5" style="font-size: 22px;">all my understanding dribbles down the chin onto the chest & is summarized as:</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 1rem; caret-color: rgb(52, 52, 52); color: rgb(52, 52, 52); font-size: 16px;"><font size="5" style="font-size: 22px;"> </font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 1rem; caret-color: rgb(52, 52, 52); color: rgb(52, 52, 52); font-size: 16px;"><em style="box-sizing: border-box;"><font size="5" style="font-size: 22px;">life is merely</font></em></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 1rem; caret-color: rgb(52, 52, 52); color: rgb(52, 52, 52); font-size: 16px;"><em style="box-sizing: border-box;"><font size="5" style="font-size: 22px;">to ovum and sperm</font></em></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 1rem; caret-color: rgb(52, 52, 52); color: rgb(52, 52, 52); font-size: 16px;"><em style="box-sizing: border-box;"><font size="5" style="font-size: 22px;">and where those two meet</font></em></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 1rem; caret-color: rgb(52, 52, 52); color: rgb(52, 52, 52); font-size: 16px;"><em style="box-sizing: border-box;"><font size="5" style="font-size: 22px;">and how often and how well</font></em></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 1rem; caret-color: rgb(52, 52, 52); color: rgb(52, 52, 52); font-size: 16px;"><em style="box-sizing: border-box;"><font size="5" style="font-size: 22px;">and what dies there.</font></em></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 1rem; caret-color: rgb(52, 52, 52); color: rgb(52, 52, 52); font-size: 16px;"><em style="box-sizing: border-box;"><font size="5" style="font-size: 22px;"><br></font></em></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 1rem; caret-color: rgb(52, 52, 52); color: rgb(52, 52, 52); font-size: 16px;"><font size="5" style="font-size: 22px;"><em style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space:pre"> </span></em>- Renée Nicole Macklin</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 1rem;"><font size="5" style="caret-color: rgb(52, 52, 52); color: rgb(52, 52, 52); font-size: 22px;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space:pre"> </span>(</font><font color="#343434"><span style="caret-color: rgb(52, 52, 52); font-size: 22px;">Renée Nicole Macklin was shot and killed by ICE agents in Minneapolis January 7, 2026)</span></font></p><div><span style="font-size: 19.200001px;"><br></span></div></body></html>