It was Tuesday it was Saturday it was five o'clock there was a ditch.
He lay with his arms out, with his teeth in a tin dish with his blood in a bowl
The limbs were arranged side by side, the fingers in the sockets five and five
The eyes were on a china plate, half closed and greying in damp light
Two ears, one nested in the other, neat like mushroom lips or saucer in saucer
Mounted on the chest was a metal medal promising surrender
and twilight filled every corner of the room even through there was no time

The sun had left for another space it was so far away time was cold and nervous
but the doctor had a smile like a radish just pulled out of the earth
His hands were as gentle as firestorms, they probed leaving enormous burnt trees
For an afternoon the fire burned outside his house and he eyed it with his hand on the clicker
Then it came into his hearth and untied his sinews and burnt the snaps

No one visited him where his body was stacked up and rearranged
Wherever this place was it wasn't taking any visitors without their joining the club
Someone was in charge that was the logic of it his brain said alone on a pillow
The silk threads dug into its soft folds and left their traces, his brain stem was a harness
Every thought came out strong as a hammer and beat against the walls and subsided
The patient is dead they declared and shouted through the wired glass they were excited
I'm not dead at all, the patient shouted back, I'm undecided in everything like dying
I may be back on Tuesday though, he said grabbing his hat with two wires and a sharp piece of bone soon
as I get this contraption to work, this eye sticks now and my tongue was put in backwards
Now you can't believe a word I say it sounds just like the truth