RIGOR MORTIS: POSTHUMOUS MUSCULAR RIGIDITY
The tepid carcass examinately reclines on my table
Its peculiar muscular activity, rigor mortis, works in my favor
Determining PMI through rigid, bone-cracking means
Postmortem rigidity occurs through the depletion of ATP.
Adenosine triphosphate is required for muscle relaxation
But metabolic activity continues after death and creates a reaction
Lactid acid is spent and exhausts the store of glycogen
Muscles go hard from the abnormal links between actin and myosin.
This maturating stiff.
Becomes quite stiff.
Positioning the corpse can be quite a Herculean task
As I bend the crepitating unmalleable limbs with revolting cracks
Obstinate appendages stubbornly give way under my dragoon efforts
My aching muscles are overtaxed and pushed well passed discomfort.
.Paralytic legs, unflexing arms.
.Carrion with all its frozen charm.
.Unmoving torso, intractable neck.
.Deplorable corpse a total wreck.
Between 2 and 12 hours is the solidifying time required
For abductors and adductors to become unyieldingly mired
It will take a day for outstretched extremities to acquiesce
Finally amenable to my adroit limb-wrenching finesse.
The lampooning hu-mannequin's muscle proteins are devoured
As the taciturn body achieves maximal rigor in 12 hours
12 hours more and the muscular fiber grudgingly give way
When the proteolytic enzymes in the lysosomes of muscle cells escape.
.Corpse piquantly olid.
.Now maceratedly flaccid.
Barring rare cadaveric spasms, a PMI timeline can be mapped
Factor in environmental variables and the effects they can have
Ripening malodorous remains can speak from the grave
And tell us their time of death by how their muscles behave.
.Paralytic legs, unflexing arms.
.Carrion with all its frozen charm.
.Unmoving torso, intractable neck.
.Deplorable corpse a total wreck.