Artwork: The Room by Eldzier Cortor
This wagon of flesh
Cupped with eyes Seeing and unseeing, This dragon belly, Blood, bestiality turned into Paperweight patience by Slush-driven spirit, is my body. My body, this unknowing Masquerading between Books and talks and whispers Meant to make Sense of it all. Torching the essence Of life growing Between skin And nail, crumbly with earth, A garden half-moistened With other-worldly wind. My body : bundled history Presented like a karmic show To grandmother and her mother And her mother, Living time like Cinematic apparitions Repeating alongside, Divided by decades Parallel All the way to heaven And hell Turning under a man's body, Twisting to some unnameable Sensation Plugged Between snaking Legs and feelings, swimmers In a lake of daunting destinies, Is my body, unformed When I think Of skiing, Of balancing on rope, Or booking a ballet class, My legs inform They will give way, If I cannot pause, And feel my ribs rise With alien breaths that Were supposed to find Their way in, is my body Shrinking in the mirror, Breasts, buttocks, the gnarling Of fingers known for failing At caresses investigating geographies Between self and self Is the body that cries, Hidden in musty blankets Of first impressions Cast on strangers and Lovers who won't stop Sulking is my body, Wanting silence, In the echoes of A moon in heat, A silence I could Eat up whole.
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