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My Mother Visits the Dissection Room<\/strong><\/p>\n She said she wanted to go there. <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n Eliot North<\/strong> is a doctor, educator and writer who lives and works in the North East. Commended in the National Poetry Competition 2014, she made The Crab Man<\/em> into a Filmpoem with artist and filmmaker Alastair Cook. She loves to collaborate.<\/p>\n Author’s Note: My mother has never actually visited the Dissection Room.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" My Mother Visits the Dissection Room She said she wanted to go there. So I pulled some strings, read her the rules. \u201cSensible shoes?\u201d she said. \u201cYes Mother. Plus clothes you don\u2019t mind ruined. Fixers, they don\u2019t wash out. The smell will get you, but not of death. More chemicals like wax […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[135,7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-11697","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-2016-poetry-picks","category-prose-poetry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11697","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11697"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11697\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11920,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11697\/revisions\/11920"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11697"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11697"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11697"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\nSo I pulled some strings,
\nread her the rules.
\n\u201cSensible shoes?\u201d she said.
\n\u201cYes Mother. Plus clothes
\nyou don\u2019t mind ruined.
\nFixers, they don\u2019t wash out.
\nThe smell will get you,
\nbut not of death. More chemicals
\nlike wax and rubber.\u201d
\nBut my mother, being my mother
\ndidn\u2019t seem to mind.
\nWalked right up to the
\nplastic head,
\nstuck her hand inside.
\n\u201cYou won\u2019t even know
\nI\u2019m here,\u201d she said.
\nPulled on a dark-blue lab coat.
\nWatched closely
\nas I unzipped the body bag,
\nrevealed cavities and cages.
\nStood on tiptoes to peer inside,
\nscribbled in her notebook.
\nSo I placed a stool
\nthree feet away;
\nher territory and mine.
\nWhen the students filed in
\nthey looked at her,
\nthe older woman with colourful shoes.
\nWhilst I quizzed the students,
\nshe daubed her paints.
\nAt the end they crowded round her.
\nAdmired her line and
\nbrave use of colour
\nwhilst I put the organs back.
\nAs the students left
\nshe called out to them.
\n\u201cCall me Poppy!\u201d she cried.
\nThey waved from the door.
\n\u201cWeren\u2019t they interesting?
\nWhat a wonderful body,
\nall those nooks and crannies.\u201d
\nI slung the heart in a plastic bag.
\nLooked at my watch
\nbefore herding her out.
\nThen as we went to the door
\nshe turned round and said,
\n\u201cShall we say the same time next week?\u201d<\/p>\n