I come to bring him the book of philosophy
we discussed drunk late last night
He is seated alone in a medical center lab
on a Sunday afternoon
moving the spectrometer back and forth
across a raw piece of tissue that appears
to be a cut of supermarket steak
Above his worktable is a shelf
with an ulcerated foot and ankle,
a jaw, a knee joint, other unidentified
body parts in zip lock bags
I see that my neighbor, the intern pathologist,
has already gone sour at a young age
and speaks in grunts
“What’s that?” I ask about the specimen clicking
under his handheld instrument
“Somebody’s liver,” he says without looking up
I set the book on a little table behind him and leave
Not talkative today