"i want back my rocking chairs, solipsist sunsets, & coastal jungle sounds that are tercets from cicadas and pentameter from the hairy legs of cockroaches. i've donated bibles to thrift stores (mashed them in plastic trash bags with an acidic himalayan salt lamp the post-baptism bibles, the ones plucked from street corners from the meaty hands of zealots, the dumbed-down, easy-to-read, parasitic kind): remember more the slick rubber smell of high gloss biology textbook pictures;"
"under clippings of the moon at two forty five AM I study&repeat ribosome endoplasmic lactic acid stamen at the IHOP on the corner of powers and stetson hills i repeated & scribbled until it picked its way & stagnated somewhere i can't point to anymore, maybe my gut maybe there in-between my pancreas & large intestine is the piddly brook of my soul."
Renee Good received an Academy of American Poets Prize in 2020 for On Learning to Dissect Fetal Pigs. The work balances science and faith through vivid domestic and biological imagery, longing for rocking chairs and cicadas alongside the slick rubber smell of high-gloss biology textbook pictures. Lines describe donated bibles, acidic salt lamps, late-night study at an IHOP, anatomical terms, and a tiny brook of the soul between organs. The voice questions whether faith and college science can coexist. The person is remembered as a loving mother and supportive partner while politicians and online commentators scrutinize shaky cell phone footage of her final moments.
Read at www.npr.org
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