Peter Pereira is the author of several poetry collections, including the Hayden Carruth Award–winning Saying the World and What’s Written on the Body. He has been published in literary journals and anthologies and has appeared on National Public Radio’s The Writer’s Almanac. Pereira is a family physician living in Seattle.

Photograph by Tom Collicott.

Preparing the Body for Viewing

by Peter Pereira
Remove all lines.

—from a nursing manual

A cable, a rope, a string, a cord, a wire.
The path traced by a moving point.
A thin continuous mark, as that made by a pen,
a pencil, or brush applied to a surface.
A pipe or system of pipes for conveying a fluid: gas lines.

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