The Surgeon's Brain

Cover Page Title Page Copyright Contents Dura Mater | Tough Mother Coming into the world Of an evening Into the forest Rent Marriage London The idea New clothes Journey to the university Code name The rules Speak like a man Dissection Corner Arachnoid Mater | Spider Mother Georgiana Two black horses Good words Into the ground Bonteboks Happiness Duel Well The rainbow ball The surgeon’s brain The bad seed Lord Somerset departs the Cape Knife Estranged Pia Mater | Tender Mother Blood Imaginary eulogy John Rebellion The Cradle of Death Fashionable bodies Eggs without mutton Stand your ground! Every quarrel What’s in the box? London Goodbye Elegy for medical practice Rorschach Memorials Lying still A poem with missing Notes and Acknowledgements 
 
 
 Te Herenga Waka University Press
 Victoria University of Wellington
 PO Box 600, Wellington
 New Zealand
 teherengawakapress.co.nz
 Te Herenga Waka University Press
 was formerly Victoria University Press.
 Copyright © Oscar Upperton 2022
 First published 2022
 This book is copyright. Apart from any fair dealing for the purpose of private study, research, criticism or review, as permitted under the Copyright Act, no part may be reproduced by any process without the permission of the publishers.
 The moral rights of the author have been asserted.
 A catalogue record is available at the National Library of New Zealand.
 ISBN 9781776920013 (print)
 ISBN 9781776920532 (EPUB)
 ISBN 9781776920525 (Kindle)
 This book was written and published with the support of Creative New Zealand and the Louis Johnson New Writer’s Bursary.
 
 Ebook conversion 2022 by meBooks
 When I was a boy I was told that when I began a story, to begin at the beginning and continue to the end.
 —James Barry
 Contents
 Dura Mater | Tough Mother
 Coming into the world
 Of an evening
 Into the forest
 Rent
 Marriage
 London
 The idea
 New clothes
 Journey to the university
 Code name
 The rules
 Speak like a man
 Dissection
 Corner
 Arachnoid Mater | Spider Mother
 Georgiana
 Two black horses
 Good words
 Into the ground
 Bonteboks
 Happiness
 Duel
 Well
 The rainbow ball
 The surgeon’s brain
 The bad seed
 Lord Somerset departs the Cape
 Knife
 Estranged
 Pia Mater | Tender Mother
 Blood
 Imaginary eulogy
 John
 Rebellion
 The Cradle of Death
 Fashionable bodies
 Eggs without mutton
 Stand your ground!
 Every quarrel
 What’s in the box?
 London
 Goodbye
 Elegy for medical practice
 Rorschach
 Memorials
 Lying still
 A poem with missing
 Notes and Acknowledgements
 DURA MATER
 tough mother
 Coming into the world
 We are never closer. We will not be close again.
 This is old to you. You have birthed my brother
 and seen babies born many times. For me it is all new.
 Space around my arms and legs is new. Cold is new
 and painful. Breathing in this way is new, and the world
 is so bright, although I have none of these words yet to describe it.
 I remember none of what happened.
 This is the transcription of an imagined memory.
 Why do I do this? Well. I am played out, on my way out. I feel it,
 lying in this bed it is like I am dead already.
 The sun does not even reach the pane of my window
 and no one calls. My lungs are weary with too much breathing
 and I have too much space between my chest and the ceiling above,
 between my hand and my cup. I know too much.
 I have seen in my long career
 babies’ hands clenched around umbilical cords,
 dead babies, dead cords,
 live babies, live cords,
 dead men, dead women,
 live men, live women.
 In the room where I am being born you start to bleed
 and your aunt, not knowing what else to do,
 drags in another sack of sawdust.
 You are on the edge of delirium when I come into the world
 and your aunt says
 you have a girl now, Mary Anne.
 You don’t have me now, Mary Anne.
 I think of the line I have traced around the globe
 that led me from that room to this, not so far a distance
 but I took the long way around,
 the long way around. And now I will tell you of it.
 Of an evening
 I’m not the kind of friend you’d want to befriend.
 Do you know what I do, of an evening? Well.
 When the ships come into port there are bodies
 on the ships. They must take the bodies
 off the ships and if I hide my hair they will
 show me a body and tell me how it came to die like that.
 Then they ask, where are your parents? and I run, run.
 The bodies are much bigger than me, long and puffy,
 pickled like fish, and many of them are far from home
 but some are coming home to Cork in a bottle.
 Into the forest
 Some things I keep secret even from myself.
 This town was built on other towns.
 Sometimes it’s easier to just keep building.
 Under that church another church, and they say
 people have fished these shores for generations uncounted.
 Some things I keep secret even from myself.
 The town cats light up the night with yellow eyes
 and I’m not supposed to be out of an evening
 but I am out of an evening and my feet are wet
 and at home Mamma waits beside the fire.
 Some things I keep secret even from myself.
 I’ve never seen a forest but sometimes I walk in