A Partial History of the Neck from Issue 96
To understand the neck,
that tender stretch
of vulnerability,
we must listen to the throat,
(pharynx, larynx, epiglottis)
its groans and vibrations,
the damage it endures.
Let it tell you the story
of the guillotine,
a device made
solely for the neck.
Let it speak
of every hanging in history,
how a rope
can behead or break.
/
Take the word
trachea,
unwrap within it
windpipe, rough artery.
Watch the horseshoe of the hyoid
ride alone, strapped in muscle,
untethered by other bones.
In a third
of strangulations the hyoid
fractures. In other cases
the bone
is a liar,
says nothing of the trauma
it witnessed.
/
The vessels of the neck, however,
tease out truth, though they may procrastinate
in their telling.
Bruises appear days later.
Symptoms of whiplash
may take weeks or months to manifest.
A van ride, telephone poles,
the long yawn
of a giraffe’s neck—
interrogate them
and violence follows
like a confession.
/
For instance, one video shows a giraffe
swinging his neck like a flail
against another. Repeatedly
it smashes its head
into its rival, the impact
jolting, terrifying.
And this video
shows a man being lugged
into a police van.
Don’t ask why. Don’t ask what
happened before
they lifted him by the arms.
Let the moans escaping his throat
fill in every blank.
/
Depraved-heart murder, the hyphen
like a scar in the phrase,
an action where one behaves
with depraved
indifference
to human life
which results in a person’s
death.
/
Say this
again: depraved.
/
Now say officer/van driver.
Even a symbol
(the slash, for example)
simple as a seatbelt
meant to secure a passenger
functions to separate.
His spine, they say, was severed
almost entirely at the neck—