A man nobody knows or misses

…and she laughs her

(what now passes for a)

school-girl laugh,

“—it would shatter,

Oh

My

God…”

“That’d be blunt force trauma to the head,”

another among the group adds,

as they sit around

the skeletonized remains

of a man nobody knows

or misses,

passing his skull all over the place.

Upon closer examination

of the rearticulated specimen,

an inexact, yet detailed history

is constructed;

his bones show severe trauma

as well as crude—

quite crude—

medical intervention.

“The limp of a twice-shattered leg,

dental hygiene commensurate with the lowest levels of poverty,

fused cervical vertebrae allowing no rotation of the head,

and an irregular opening (antemortem) on the right temporal plate of the skull showing signs of bone growth…”

the professor recites, well-practiced, almost worn out.

“His remains were discovered fully skeletonized in Memphis in1985.”
“He had been dead approximately one year.”

“We have estimated him to have been in about his late-fifties at time-of-death.”

“He was born in the early- to mid-twenties.”

“This man has seen war…”

A too-brief silence falls over the group.

“But that’s so sad,” she whines—

“Do you think it was Vietnam?” the other one chimes in,

begging to be made into a spectacle,

as they sit around

the skeletonized remains

of a man nobody knows

or misses,

passing his skull all over the place.