One dreary morn they found me,
stored away from public view
within some time-forgotten annex,
where few dared ever venture
save the morbid, strange or curious.

A label hung around my wrist,
though none could now decipher
words once written bold in ink  
by some long-dead medic’s hand.  
(‘Tis true, a man once consigned me here.)

And so today you see me lying prone
within a white-walled room.
Blue lights glare down upon
my twisted shape, my ravaged torso,
my empty sockets and my grinning jaw.

What tales I could tell them,
these two masked women!
How once, when a child in London Town,
was I drugged and drowned,
then sold to meet the surgeon’s knife!

Not for me, the gracious innocence of death;
not for me, warm tears, soft prayers
upon a flower strewn grave!  
For I fell victim to the cursed Body Snatchers,
sold for thirty silver pieces by the hospital gate.

So now here I lay, rib-cage rent asunder,
vermilion wax pumped hard-set into
cold blood vessels, cranium sawn in half.
I raise my hand to greet you, for
they say I died to further science.