"I didn't seem possible. Yet neither did her mind's complete extinction."

As far as science can tell, that lump of tissue had held the series of connections and feelings, associations and impressions, that had been this woman. But where was her mind now? When we had first unwrapped the formalin-soaked cloth covering her hands, we'd found our cadaver's fingernails still wore a perfect coat of light purple polish. Did this woman's taste for lavender survive the death of her body? Was it contained in the brain I now held, frozen there? I didn't seem possible. Yet neither did her mind's complete extinction. Did her loves and disappointments and memories exist somewhere still, or had they died when her body did?

As I mentioned in class, the nail polish in the Cadaver, Speak poems stood out to me. This is the passage from Shannon Moffett's book The Three-Pound Enigma that I was thinking of when I read those poems. I find it highly relevant to our conversation about where/what it was of the Cadaver that could speak beyond death.