{"id":2952,"date":"2022-01-04T15:25:56","date_gmt":"2022-01-04T23:25:56","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/inside.ewu.edu\/willowspringsmagazine\/?p=2952"},"modified":"2024-12-17T09:34:53","modified_gmt":"2024-12-17T17:34:53","slug":"neurosurgery-sonata-by-brooke-matson","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/inside.ewu.edu\/willowspringsmagazine\/neurosurgery-sonata-by-brooke-matson\/","title":{"rendered":"“Neurosurgery Sonata” by Brooke Matson"},"content":{"rendered":"
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\"Issue<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Found in Willow Springs 82<\/em><\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Back to Author Profile<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n\n<\/div><\/div>\n\n

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“Neurosurgery Sonata” by Brooke Matson<\/h1>\n\n\n\n

Neurosurgery Sonata<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

I’ve imagined it many times and still, it jars<\/p>\n\n\n\n

like a fist to the jaw. There <\/em>will <\/em>be <\/em>music<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

despite everything, <\/em>you quoted, and yes, my pulse<\/p>\n\n\n\n

quickens at Zoe Keating’s electric<\/p>\n\n\n\n

cello even now, enough to need tissues.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I imagine it so often, it’s as if I saw<\/p>\n\n\n\n

the surgeon, swathed like a priest, drive the saw<\/p>\n\n\n\n

into your skull. Like popping the seal of a mason jar,<\/p>\n\n\n\n

he unhinges blood and bone, exposes the gray tissue<\/p>\n\n\n\n

of his trade. The nurse presses play <\/em>on your music<\/p>\n\n\n\n

as instructed (cue the cello); nerves bathe in electric<\/p>\n\n\n\n

oceans of anesthesia; the pulse<\/p>\n\n\n\n

of cello strings drop like plumb lines through the pulsing<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Z of the heart monitor. I believe you hear it. But that saw<\/p>\n\n\n\n

haunts me — some real Frankenstein shit. Where’s <\/em>the electric<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

bolt of <\/em>lightning? <\/em>you’d joke, but I can’t laugh. The jarring<\/p>\n\n\n\n

raze of its serrated music<\/p>\n\n\n\n

cleaves my tissue-thin<\/p>\n\n\n\n

bravery. Time, I have learned, is a flexible tissue<\/p>\n\n\n\n

and the muscled pulse<\/p>\n\n\n\n

of your  neurons strums its own shining music:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

our first kiss on a darkened street; the see-sawing<\/p>\n\n\n\n

oars of kayaks on the bay; whiskey sipped from jam jars<\/p>\n\n\n\n

on the Fourth of July; fireworks glowing electric<\/p>\n\n\n\n

as you rise between thighs, electrified —<\/p>\n\n\n\n

years of time folded tightly in a cortex maze of tissue<\/p>\n\n\n\n

where somewhere, my body wanders through synapses that jar<\/p>\n\n\n\n

and flicker like Vegas highways, pulsations<\/p>\n\n\n\n

of neon in contiguous, cursive constellations. Tell me sawing<\/p>\n\n\n\n

stars from the sky is impossible, that music<\/p>\n\n\n\n

can’t be severed from melody, the cellist from the musical<\/p>\n\n\n\n

oscillations of her instrument, the wild electron<\/p>\n\n\n\n

from the nucleus it loves. Say there is not a saw<\/p>\n\n\n\n

for every bond. Say that our minds are not lanterns of tissue<\/p>\n\n\n\n

paper, easily torn. Your pulse<\/p>\n\n\n\n

holds you together a while — a fragile jar<\/p>\n\n\n\n

of stars humming their music in the dark tissue<\/p>\n\n\n\n

of space, an electric dance of neurons. Like hope, they pulse.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

O  trade me a saw for a spoon, that I may scrape the sides of that jar.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n<\/div><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"","protected":false},"author":23834,"featured_media":547,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"wpo365_audiences":[],"wpo365_private":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2952","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-featured-work"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/inside.ewu.edu\/willowspringsmagazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2952"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/inside.ewu.edu\/willowspringsmagazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/inside.ewu.edu\/willowspringsmagazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inside.ewu.edu\/willowspringsmagazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/23834"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inside.ewu.edu\/willowspringsmagazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2952"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/inside.ewu.edu\/willowspringsmagazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2952\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":37970,"href":"https:\/\/inside.ewu.edu\/willowspringsmagazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2952\/revisions\/37970"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inside.ewu.edu\/willowspringsmagazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/547"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/inside.ewu.edu\/willowspringsmagazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2952"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inside.ewu.edu\/willowspringsmagazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2952"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inside.ewu.edu\/willowspringsmagazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2952"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}