Note: In 1840, Sir Thomas Browne’s skull was removed from the St. Peter Mancroft Church in Norwich when his coffin was “accidentally” disturbed by workmen. The skull wasn’t returned to lie with the rest of Browne’s earthly remains until 1922. In addition to writing “Religio Medici,” “Urne-Buriall,” and “Pseudodoxia Epidemica,” the 17th century physician and essayist is credited with coining dozens of words including medical, hallucination, electricity, exhaustion and coma.) 

From the Misadventures of Sir Thomas Browne’s Skull

#1: Medical

after testing magnetic fluid with apples

tongue tied with a string 

& knock      

     ing on the farmhouse 

floorboards 

in Hydesville, NY

the Fox sisters gnaw’d

the skull 

of Thomas Browne 

from seed husks of sunflower & Caledonian pine

communing a shadow image 

assembled like the worldly goods 

of a Dutch still life

14.7 cm wide 

right socket cribra orbitalia,

spermaceti wedged like a fennel bulb in the left 

& drip

     ping with the endless mutations 

of Nature.

#2: Hallucination 

her eyes mention sunsets, briefly 

but then she nods twice at the overcooked agave 

cankering my broad lace collar & breeches

“hole in your lip,” she says & I 

glance in the bar mirror at my skull

a festoon of beads & sequins, almonds

painted leaves & roses wreathed around 22 bones 

that come together like a puzzle, a calavera 

that upon closer inspection is missing a name

it could be me

or just another departed 

soul. 

#3: Electricity

I sd to the son 

of the candle & soap maker

“a tenuous emanation 

or continued effluvium

retracteth fire from the clouds”

whereupon the early capitalist 

stood in a field 

with a large handkerchief

waiting for Zeus

to jump from / the sky. 

#4: Exhaustion 

After 

a 48 year 

country ramble

I’m sitting at the Horn of Plenty 

in Whitechapel 

& I says, Jack

the body is open 

to contemplation. 

#5: Coma

doorknobs & doorjambs w/ hasps & hinges / 

yellow bananas launched on blue boats / telephone game /

the benefit of planting trees in latticelike formation / snowflakes 

slide softly soon / where is the square / 

doors and jabs w/ hooks & hikes / 

blueberries craunched on blue coats / broken telephone /

dead kingfishers do not make good weathervanes / Edinburgh / 

the skin of a snake bred out of the spinal marrow of man /