I have seen the sabotage of the body,
whole armies of language moving upwards
from the torso, the bridge between the hands
blown up senselessly
and eyes
without thought. I know nothing
of the body’s rebellion, the nights spent
lying in the streets, the small favors,
the long crowds of adulterers knocking
quietly on their own doors. We see only this
shadow of desire, an aimless hand,
an amputated arm, a wound that will not heal.
One summer a man took off his clothes
in a crowded room. A thousand words
sprung from beneath his shirt, a long
tirade of air blew around his body
without mercy. The longest night
dug into his flesh like the sharpest fingernails.
Later this man would invent the word ‘decorum’.
There is a season made of wax,
a hundred leaves falling into the hand,
the sun going down like a woman
on the oldest man. I would not give up
this moment for all the intelligence
reports on the body, the exact time
of its departure, its waking
from the grave, the slow rising
of the forehead like a message from the dead.
When we open the letter of the body
it will be like the chair in which
we are sitting, the drink of water
sliding down the throat, the end
of the line between the bedroom
and the bedsheets. We will walk
on the edge of the longest balcony,
waving good-bye to the wilted flowers
of the spirit, the forgotten promise
of the language, the last words
always left unsaid.
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