Issue 4, October 2009
{
}+previous next story+ The Soul
Kimiko Hahn
Willis was intrigued by the curious quilted ball,
receiver of animal electricity—
but could not bring himself to identify the brain
as the bodily home of the soul.
But why cite region
on behalf of invisible impulse?
What prompts one child,
to warn her mother
that she doesn’t want to read about her affairs
with boys in muscle cars
but that she is gladdened to know
the collections will survive her
as a keepsake of extreme explanation—
and prompts the other
to write so viciously of family vacations
the father renounces her?
Why open the skull as daily enterprise?
Why research what is transparent?
Why not see the soul for what it is—
that sideswipe? that rip tide? that addiction
to human remains?
Kimiko Hahn
“I addicted myself to the opening of heads.” Thomas Willis
A physician of King Charles the Second,Willis was intrigued by the curious quilted ball,
receiver of animal electricity—
but could not bring himself to identify the brain
as the bodily home of the soul.
But why cite region
on behalf of invisible impulse?
What prompts one child,
to warn her mother
that she doesn’t want to read about her affairs
with boys in muscle cars
but that she is gladdened to know
the collections will survive her
as a keepsake of extreme explanation—
and prompts the other
to write so viciously of family vacations
the father renounces her?
Why open the skull as daily enterprise?
Why research what is transparent?
Why not see the soul for what it is—
that sideswipe? that rip tide? that addiction
to human remains?
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