Interlude

by Dominique Bernier-Cormier

A chameleon, the boot of a shoemaker, your wife’s ring finger.

At the Museum of Surgical History in Chicago,

I learn that after Wilhelm Röntgen discovered X-rays in 1895,

the Munich aristocracy hosted parties

where they took “bone portraits.”

We all want to see inside ourselves, if only once,

if only wrecked on Veuve Cliquot as the century wilts

like silver roses outside the windows of the chateau,

if only to remember that flesh is an interlude

between your hand and the crystal glass it holds.

In the gift shop, they sell postcards

of Röntgen’s early experiments.

A dolphin foetus, a porcelain vase, a coat full of watches.

I buy a stack of his wife’s skeleton hand

so I can send one to every city I still call home.

The cashier, who’s wearing a t-shirt of a ribcage,

scans each jeweled phalange.

Back on the street, I imagine every outfit

as a reflection of the inside. A man sitting on his porch

in a red velvet robe is showing off

his bright network of arteries.

A model on a billboard

the lace nightgown of her nerves.

A kid being dragged by the hand

in a blue corduroy jacket

his fear of the ocean.

In the hotel room, I write to my brother

that I miss him on the back of Mrs. Röntgen’s hand.

I unclasp the chain from my neck,

a silver collarbone I coil carefully on the bedside table.

We all want to see inside ourselves, if only once,

if only as you change into your evening dress

in front of a mirror in Chicago, if only to know

there are still parts of you

no one can see through.