Diorama of the Symptoms and Treatment of Hysteria
    The Mütter Museum of the College of Physicians of Philadelphia


The dolls have nothing—not even
beds—just wire to hang them in lights
askew from decades of traveling, one
lecture hall to the next. How long
have they been each other’s companions
as shadow overlapping in corners.

One has lost her hair. One’s shriek drips
a smile down her neck. The third’s dress
is a brittle net against her leg. I imagine
them sliding down their wires like spelunkers
to stretch limbs, shake hands, and amble
from the box. One grabs a curette and half
a deformed jaw. One smacks forceps
against a basin. The third buzzes her lips
into a funnel, and they join the dance
of the hydrocephalic fetuses flinging
their bones into formaldehyde set
aglow in the light of the exit sign.