Sorry it ended up like this.
Me out here, still wrapped up warm in my vestigial garment of flesh.
You in there, naked amongst your primitive ancestors like the youngest adult at a wedding, mingling awkwardly, embarrassed.
I wonder how you died. Your ribs look like they have been fixed back together after some kind of trauma.
A car crash maybe?
Maybe you struggled with long term illness, rotting before you ripened like a sickly bud in a wet spring.
However it happened your bronze plaque states it was untimely and therefore probably tragic. '(A young woman)' I read, not so much discovering but confirming what I already knew to be true when I first laid eyes first met yours across the crowded room.
You stand about as tall as me, your shining off white cheeks delicate as fine china. Staring out of you glass cabinet, you seem to beg not to be judged alongside your distant relatives, your slumping neighbors.
Fragile and sweet, you radiate a quiet dignity. It isn't hard to imagine the thin layer of blood, skin and fibrous tissue that it would take to make you beautiful again.
I plunge my hand through that glass portal, soft folds of meat transposed to brittle bone and back again, unifying you world with the mortal
It was obvious that you were beautiful, and involuntarily I envy the one who held you and kissed you last.
I wonder if anyone ever wrote a poem for you when you were alive.
I visited a museum. One display case contained human skeleton, beside the skeletons of various other primates. I fell in love.