Bodies
That we exist in bodies is ridiculous.
Not the bodies themselves — lattice, torque,
lace — but how soft they are. How everything
can go in a second. Ambulation leads to
ambulance, vehicles to ventilator, hard candy
to coffin. Rocked back with shock, laid up for a week
or eight. The cosmic vacuum is always on and looking
for more specks to lift into oblivion. When my sister
was born everyone said, watch out
for the soft spot on her head. Even then I thought
that was crazy — why would a baby
come so jelled, so open? Everything about her
made me anxious. Every cry, bump, fall
was going to be the end. Fresh torrent of tears —
family shred at the seams.
And now my own body not the given
it once seemed. New medications, dehydration —
routine middle of the night pee now fraught.
Once a body’s set in motion downwards, there’s no telling
where gravity will deposit it. Gashes, stitches,
displacements. If you’re lucky.
And what’s the deep meaning of body
fragility? Transience of all things? Supremacy
of soul? Need for pleasure to counter pain?
I’m not wise enough to say.
But when my lover rubs my feet and relief
immediate; when she caresses my back and gives
an unexpected kiss; when we’re entwined
and our bodies seamless — all sublime. And far
from ridiculous. This dissociative orphan —
my body — now portal to, yes, pleasure, but
also presence. Safe to exit the head, open senses.
Maybe this is a poem about love, not the body.
But how to separate? A body can glide the path
to love, and love can tether a body to the world.
And now, though my wish is to bound out of bed at night,
I don’t. I do what the doctor says — sit at the edge
a couple seconds, stand up but don’t walk
right away. Get my bearings. Hold on to things.