Dissecting the Rat
by Sarah Gamard
Winner of the 2026 Poetry Life Contest
Catholic schoolgirls, when they presented us the carcasses, became huntresses weavers
in the formaldehyde, the soft yarn of their intestines. Some of us, ebullient and shielded
with gloves puppeteer them, finger those horrific mouths, lift them
by the tails, drop dripping corpses on wet trays. Scalpel, scissors.
Little lungs matting skin useless
as anything. Who decided they would die
for us? A few of us fell ill at the sight, those teeth
biting frozen chins in the discomfort
of death, as if dreaming. I remember it: We were not thinking
about our Planned Parenthood down the street – the one still standing there
today like a ruin – the curse
of our own organs. No. And later on, might even have one, two
and never tell you.
I cut a jagged line down
the stomach, a girl next to me rips out
its uterus, the brown heart, the skull
cracks open like paper and I
could cry.
It’s just a body, she says.
As long as I hold my breath, reach in,
forget. And before long, doing it will be as mindless,
natural as anything: like playing
an instrument, like driving
70 miles an hour, like letting him cum
inside you, like reciting
a prayer.
O when
does the spirit leave
the body, when
does it intrude?
It’s just a vessel.
Just a vessel. Just a vessel
of the
soul.
Sarah Gamard is a writer from New Orleans. She writes about the South, U.S. politics and queerness.