To have peeled back the sanguine face
The feat of passive genius now replaced
The strident stars succumbed to youthful grace
In half-scanned scalpels hot to nature’s plate.
What led remorseful pupils to their peak
Advanced the vitreous pleasure of the weak
Who came to see if fingers felt the deep
Or flayed the traps of buccal masterpiece.
The quiet ear, contemptuous mouth,
The germinal expectation of a pout;
To bury, raise the film of skin to doubt
The striated base of spirited clout.
The lonesome lid, a smile that had once been
By thrilling Thanatos reduced to grin
At throves of lingering hands that hope to win
The honorable discharge akin to sin.
To have experienced the hanging fruit
Or relished what becomes of keeping mute
He or I, enveloped in surprise
Of which had had the knife drawn to the eye.
Medical Student Editor and in-Training Staff Member
Albany Medical College
Steven attends Albany Medical College as a student of the Class of 2017. Raised in Queens, New York, he earned a BA in English with a minor in Biology from Binghamton University in May 2013. Some of his interests include poetry, martial arts, traveling, and continental philosophy. He is currently aspiring to become a radiologist.