Ann Hudson
HIPPOCAMPUS
My predatory curiosity needles the dark.
I click on the lamp. I hunt for pictures
of the human brain, its folds and trajectories.
Look: long-term memory and spatial relationships
in a part of the brain named for the seahorse,
which it was thought to resemble.
And here’s the amygdala, named
for an almond, that triggers fear. I twist
in the sheets and think about all the ways
my children might suffer. They are heavily asleep,
their limbs pale and askew as if
their bodies had been dropped there
from a height I’m too afraid to name.