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...