Emma Liverseed
School of Medicine and Public Health
2020
Poem
After a long night
(or morning?)
of studying, you imagine
wedging a bookmark
into your gray matter—
a bookmark, because
who would want
a dog-eared brain?
You can never remember
where you leave off.
The brain does not catalogue
like a filing cabinet,
but if it did,
what would you lock
in the cortex’s folds?
Memories for safe keeping,
or ones to forget?
Some recollections
always stay
out of sight,
whether or not
you want them to,
and the cabinets collect
shrouds of dust—
unlike poetry, memories
never read from left
to right. Your brain
is a studio,
not an office, your mind
a beautiful, furious network
of paint splatters,
overlapped and intertwined.