Mapping Rupture

nervetowrite
Mar 14
1 min read

Updated: 3 days ago

by Catherine Garbinsky

The image is a black and white wood engraving of the liver ("seen from below") and the gallbladder from “Nouveau Dictionnaire Encyclopédique Universel Illustré” edited by Jules Trousset. The lines are thick and black. There are letters with dotted lines attached to the specific veins, arteries, and organs, originally featuring a key for the following: “a.Vena cava; b.Portal vein; c.Cystic duct; d.Common hepatic artery; l.Gallbladder.” However, the original diagram key has been removed. Instead, it now reads:

a. In the night: every shadow haunts me hollow– creeps against furniture, contours my pain.

b. Scared: red like a portal opening to the past. Once severed, now scarred.

c. No closure: stented wound & bile. The body holds on, [ ] drains joy.

d. A working theory of exhalation: stitches dissolve, stomach softens. Depend upon it.

l. Resection: remove dead tissue (memories swollen to rot). Never whole again

A smiling white woman with short, purple hair, a swirly blue and pink neck tattoo and red
lipstick wearing black cat eye glasses a leopard print cardigan.

Catherine Garbinsky is a writer living in Knoxville, Tennessee, where they are a PhD candidate at the University of Tennessee-Knoxville and serve as poetry co-editor for Grist. Catherine has

written two chapbooks: All Spells Are Strong Here (Ghost City Press) and Even Curses End (Animal Heart Press), and her work has been featured in Yes Poetry, Coffin Bell Journal, and

Cream City Review.