Into The Manner and Causation of The Death of Jane Doe.

[Kenneth2816]

My name and number lifted
from taxpayer rolls, solid citizen
duly summoned as Coroner's Juror
The deputy said the call was recorded,
gave me the time
and place to report.

Im worried
and anxious. It's single digits
for a week; too cold for bodies.

The room is antiseptic, the coroner
Is grey. Six of us are sworn, an odd
half dozen here to complete death's business.

The bullet with her name slipped
skin, tissue, and cranial bone
sliced the jam of brain matter.

The deputy stands against the wall,
arms folded in front, stiff with
petty officiousness. The coroner
does not meet our eyes. He drones,
elucidates. We nod.

Right pupil normal. The other is
starred,its cornea resembling
the faint corona of a dying sun.

Victorians believed the retina
recorded the last view of the dead
and photohraphed the eyes
of Jack The Ripper's victims.

Did she know? Did she see it coming, was there any pain?

Her porcelain skin is mottled
with hues of lividity that match
her eye shadow. She could be
my daughter, was someone's
daughter.

I think of all the lips
she will never kiss,all the hours
not spent on the phone with boys,
then quickly jerk myself back,
being neither father
nor lover, but merely an instrument
in a sterile process of state.

The coroner probes the wound
with a small telescoping wand,
holds it up so we can guage
the depth of entry.

We are told
the bullet flattened on impact
by design to about the size of
a dime in the shape of a buzz saw
blade missing several teeth,

never meant to exit the body
but to sever main arteries,
make pulp of organs and cause
massive hemmorage.

The deputy coughs.
We are led to a room with six
chairs and a table. He
graciously drops coins
into the coffee machine asking
cream or sugar. My cup has
three aces and a jack.

Wrongful death the foreman asks?
We nod in silence and sign the form.
Duty done, we exit without a word. My breath forms ghost vapors in the frigid air.

They said there will be a check for $11 00
in about a month.
I am hoping when I get home, the three-day-old
lasagna in the fridge is still fresh enough.

[Bernie01]

Kenneth---

shocking, I'm sure, but i don't think the first 13 verses are a poem.

a procedural detective story, swell. hard boiled, informative.

Sue Grafton's detective creation--- Kinsey Millhone



Patricia Cornwell
a very influential writer---Her first novel, circa 1990, Postmortem, introduced us to her longtime protagonist, medical examiner and forensic specialist Dr. Kay Scarpetta.
“Blood squirted as his transected femoral artery haemorrhaged to the rhythm of his horrible heart.

to add movement to the shorter version i recommend...the poet imagines this Cornwell scene....


The deputy coughs.
We are led to a room with six
chairs and a table. He
graciously drops coins
into the coffee machine asking

but here---ah, yes, feeling and mood---a poem:


The deputy coughs.
We are led to a room with six
chairs and a table. He
graciously drops coins
into the coffee machine asking

might have......HER purr---as the Puritan librarian in Ulysses:

Ulysses, Episode IX, "Syclla and Charybdis" - UVic
web.uvic.ca/~mvp1922/wp-content/uploads/.../Episode-IX-Scylla-and-Charybdis.pdf

Urbane, to comfort them, the quaker librarian purred: — And we have, have we not, those priceless pages ..... in storms dire, Tried, like another Ulysses, Pericles, prince of Tyre? Head, redconecapped, buffeted, brineblinded. ..... pleasure, looked up shybrightly. Gladly glancing, a merry puritan, through the twisted eglantine.


cream or sugar. My cup has
three aces and a jack.

good place here for heat---a thin, geriatric steam rising----and or/color---my cup is an unhealthy yellow.

even: my dented, sickly yellow cup...

pushing in objective, hardboiled feeling...



Wrongful death the foreman asks?
We nod in silence and sign the form.
Duty done, we exit without a word. My breath forms ghost vapors in the frigid air.


my raspish breath in the ghost thin air....


avoid the plural....and give the poem more range with a single, unusual word,.... nes pas?

They said there will be a check for $11 00
in about a month.
I am hoping when I get home, the three-day-old
lasagna in the fridge is still fresh enough.[/b]


Kenneth---this is deep bernie---LOL...but you are so good---you can hear me out without freaking out...



bernie

[Kenneth2816]

Bernie, you are so literate I don't know how your brain holds it all. Valid comments. Thanks coach:)

[FranktheFrank]

The genre is Flash Fiction

It is informative
it is full of detail
it encompasses much that is in
modern human interaction
it tells the story well
I learned from it
I wanted to go back and read again.

The last line about lasagna was okay
but maybe something more revealing
about how N felt, his hopes for the future
did the experience at the coroner
cause him to change of question his life
did he turn over a new leaf to live again.

Very well done, a good read for me this early cold morn.

[Kenneth2816]

Thanks Frank

[Kenneth2816]

My personal "rule" is that if two or more people give the same crit, go with it.

I will set this aside. Thanks guys.

[jaliajalia555]

Good one.


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