After We Ask to Be Born in This Body
K . m. Lig h t h o use
Where the beak goes,
the body follows
in its passage through cracks in somatic glass,
these observation tanks of embryonic fluid
and awareness,
amnesiac eggshells. Push through
and out
holes the size of puckered mouths,
escape
one enclosed world for another where you have forgotten
how to breathe or were forbidden
to speak.
Tense and contract,
push,
squeeze,
hold, release into the never-ending folds
of this compact shape, your features of evolution
in conversation with the surface of your skin.
Now, pretend to know how to move
in this body: first, rotate a left hip by degrees
to stretch,
blink,
hold position,
then shift to right
when socially acceptable.
Repeat.
Grow and wait to remember before,
when love makes you
and not the other way around
until your own pleasures are again the birth of you.
28
Cauldron Anthology