Tell me, how can we possibly call this mess
A man’s remains, broken up like an urn
As the blunt waves hurled him time and again
Against the seawall’s jagged rock? Here lies
His hairless head with all the teeth knocked out,
And there, five fingers of a chewed-off hand,
The birdcage of his unfleshed ribs, a foot
Without lappings, and a leg that’s so disjointed
You could fold it like an easel into threes.
Are we to believe these pieces once composed
One thing? That we called that thing a man?
Blessed are those, I tell you, who were never born
To see the sun rise from its bloodshot grave.
Philip, first century A.D.
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