The Education of the Mystical Surgeons ~ prose poem by Philip Jason

To become a mystical surgeon, there are three texts one must study: The History of Tulips, George Washington Carver’s The Compendium of Moon Silences and The Book of Whale Secrets. From each, one learns about exactly one third of the personal cosmos. In the first third, the undried inks of wanderlust grapple with the shy blossoms of inertia to establish a circulatory system for the imagination. In the second, a factory processes bitter gourds into a euphoric gruel that feeds the spirit animals as they ferry messages between the first and second hearts. The third is a temple that so long as it’s empty is always watched by God. The job of the mystical surgeon is the attendance of love. The good mystical surgeons count the spirit animals to accomplish this. The great ones count the animals’ dreams. The emptiness of the temple is the loudest sound in the universe. It is the sound of one hand clapping itself against the glass heart of God. The inks flow in one direction. The blossoms peek through the soil in another. The spirit animals only dream when they’re paired with other animals. The greatest surgeons are therefore matchmakers, matching ink vectors with blossom values, spirit with spirit, hand with God. In their homes, they have sheets of gleaming white posterboard which they use to map their patients. To the patients, the maps look like melted gibberish, but if they press an ear to the posterboard, they can hear a crystalline pulsing coming from their empty temple. A bright light appears beneath their fingernails. The spirit animals tell them one thing about their futures. It is always the same thing. You will forget this, but still, you will belong.

Philip Jason’s stories can be found in Prairie Schooner, The Pinch, Mid-American Review, Ninth Letter, and J Journal; his poetry in Spillway, Lake Effect, Hawaii Pacific Review, Pallette and Indianapolis Review. He is the author of the novel Window Eyes (Unsolicited Press, 2023). His first collection of poetry, I Don’t Understand Why It’s Crazy to Hear the Beautiful Songs of Nonexistent Birds, is forthcoming from Fernwood Press. For more, please visit philipjason.com.