copyright © Adam Dickinson, 2018first editionPublished with the generous assistance of the Canada Council for the Arts andthe Ontario Arts Council. Coach House Books also acknowledges the supportof the Government of Canada through the Canada Book Fund and the Govern-ment of Ontario through the Ontario Book Publishing Tax Credit.library and archives canada cataloguing in publicationDickinson, Adam, 1974-, authorAnatomic / Adam Dickinson.Poems.Issued in print and electronic formats.ISBN 978-1-55245-364-3 (socover).I. Title.PS8557.I3235A53 2018 C811'.6 C2018-900929-2 Anatomicis available as an ebook: isbn978 1 77056 546 3 (epub), isbn978 177056 550 0 (pdf)Purchase of the print version of this book entitles you to a free digital copy. Toclaim your ebook of this title, please email [email protected] with proof ofpurchase. (Coach House Books reserves the right to terminate the free digitaldownload offer at any time.)
For Ruby, Millicent, and Marigold,with every µgof my being
corpus Anatomic 9 Hormone 11 Specimen 14 Agents Orange, Yellow, and Red 15 Specimen 16 Fruit Belt 17 Hormone 18 Specimen 20 Galactic Acid 21 Hormone 22 Mouthfeel 25 Specimen 27 Integrated Pest Management 28 Specimen 30 ∆ 31 Lipids 32 Specimen 42 Shotgun, Called It 43 Commensalism 45 Hormone 49 Specimen 50 Hormone 51 ocd 52 Specimen 53 Circulation 54 Specimen 55 It Turns Out the Starting Material for the Earliest Forms of Life Is a Carcinogen 56 Specimen 58 Hormone 59 Specimen 60 A String of Small Pearls 61 Hormone 63––
Specimen 64 The People of Grassy Don’t Have a Mercury Problem, They Have a Drinking Problem 65 Specimen 66 A Minor Excretory Organ 67 Specimen 68 By All Means, Sure, Certainly, Absolutely 69 Specimen 70 Northern Planing Mills 71 Hormone 72 Gut-Brain Axis 74 Specimen 75 Outside Inside 76 Disruptors 77 Hormone 89 You Might Not Think That You Do This, But You Do 90 Hormone 91 Specimen 93 Scale 94 Hormone 95 Heterotrophies 97 Hormone 98 The Cleanse 100 Hormone 103 A Bromide 104 Specimen 105 Parts Per Billion 106 Hormone 107 The Women Favoured the Smell of Shirts from Men Whose Immune Systems Were Most Different from Their Own 108 Hormone 110––
Interkingdom Signalling 111 Specimen 112 Hormone 113 Pack Your Bags 115 Hormone 116 Spectrum 118 The Sun Can Kill You 119 Vitamin D 120 Meat Sweats 121 I Hope You Are Feeling Better 122 Hormone 123 Independent Variables 124 Specimen 125 Hormone 126 Metabolic Poetics 129 Notes 145 Acknowledgments 149 About the Author 151––
anatomicThe keys touch me when I type. My breath smells because othercreatures live out their ends in my mouth. Wearing a waterproofjacket perverts my immune response. My throat is sore because of aminiature life form that, when magnified, looks like a string of pearls.My neighbour’s attempt to control dandelions leads to misspellingsin my adrenal gland. In my lower intestine, E. colireproduces, makingvitamin K and assisting with undigested carbohydrates. My fat collectssignatures from one of the most profitable companies in the world.In necessary ways and toxic ways, the outside doctors the inside.This is evolutionary history and this is a metabolic response to theenergy technologies of my historical moment. Petrochemicals brandhormonal messages that course through endocrine pathways anddrive my metabolism. I wear multinational companies in my flesh.But I also wear symbiotic and parasitic relationships with countlessnonhumans who insist for their own reasons on making me human.I want to know the stories of these chemicals, metals, and organismsthat compose me. I am an event, a site within which the industrialpowers and evolutionary pressures of my time come to write. I am aspectacular and horrifying crowd. How can I read me? How can Iwrite me? I collect my blood, urine, sweat, and feces. I send them tolaboratories to determine the levels and types of chemicals andmicrobes I find. I get tested for hundreds of substances that fall underthe following groups: Phthalates,