The operating room and the kitchen table are harmonious;

I gut a fish the way my father pulls splinters from his callouses. Slice the belly from the jaw,

slide my scalpel into the left ventricle. The small bones are curling inward to a heart devoid of blood.

Clean; hollow; sterile. My mouth is full of river stones.

The glimmer of the knife eclipses me; I feel as if I have been caught.