Leo Vroman
(1915-2014)
Before I lived I was two living things, an absence borne between two different wings: a soft cell, female, and a hard one male. Decency may forbid me less detail but allows me to migrate and hide among the miracles of molecules inside.
Yes! Less detail I said, not more. I shall not let some stranger like myself, kind or unkind, in any flesh or in his mind observe my parents in the act.
I shall bury these long dead, alive under an undulating sea-green surgery sheet, I shall do it like a neutral nurse so none of the personnel will be distracted or attracted by the humanity that lies beyond their hands. I shall train my mental microscope only on the mental operating field, for only the unarmed naked eye is trained on the nakedness of nakedness, but our eye now being forced to see far closer, on a viral scale mercy, mercifully forbids us less detail.