Welcome to Labrys, your student-run art and literature collective of Smith College.

debakey pickup dĕ-bā’kē/ n. non-traumatic tool used to pick up blood vessels. And place them where? So, Debakey, you’ve taken the trauma out of blood have you. Out of vessels. Saved it. May I? Let us pray. To the precision of “non-traumatic.” To the heat that rises from fresh blood. To the shaken hands of your owner that stay steady while you work. To your cousin, the reamer, that follows your lead. To the flat of your mouth, its lack of teeth. To the held breaths and dirty air. To the veins. To the delicate tissue you grasp, that it does not remember its delicate. For the way I encounter you—anesthetized on a table, after re-insertion, in pictures. To those who call you ‘magic forceps’ and believe.