Rushing Toward the Horizon of My Body
This is the stork inside my body.
This is the aardvark inside my body.
This is the tail end of the enormous
slug inside my body.
This is where the cottontails sleep.
This is where a thousand whippoorwills
go to roost in my body.
These are the gazelles
that leap across my body
these are the horses gone galloping
rollicking
rushing toward the horizon of my body.
These are the snakes that were
banished from my body
and here you will find various
mammals with multi-chambered stomachs,
horned creatures from above and below,
insects so small that only their number
gives them significance.
Once I walked deep into the woods of
my body where a cow was softly lowing
and the sun was setting over
a lake filled with swans.
Once I walked into the mountains of my body
and spoke with a congress of eagles,
broke bread with a band of goats,
leapt headlong into a canyon
so packed full of butterflies
that I never hit bottom,
oh, this body!
Its generous accommodations!
The large and the small, the meek and the wild—
no matter the sound it makes, it is welcome here,
no matter its smell, it is welcome here,
no matter the mess it makes,
its bizarre eye,
its slobbery teeth,
the nits in its fur,
or its burdensome disposition,
it is welcome here.
And we will lie down together
and we will rise up together
and we will raise the roof together
and we will bring all the rivers
to the door of this great house
and we will feast
each according to their own kind
each according to their own needs.
How I Became Razor
I forgot to tell you that I am a furry animal with a soft belly, that you can open me with your fingernail, your pinky nail, not much effort. I am both giving and forgiving, holy like an angel, wholly-prepared like a good soldier. Hello, hello! Do you remember me?
I am pregnant with your animal babies, each baby you pull from me will be another version of myself, I'm special this way. When I procreate I duplicate, I perpetuate the myth of myself, that I am lean, that I am striped or polka-dotted, made of silk or angel hair; when I sleep I levitate, when I breathe I become gossamer, I become a girl who likes most to dream of creek banks and mossy tree roots and, oh! I forgot to tell you that I am ageless but also fifty-seven. I forgot to tell you that I lie sometimes, that I like the butt ends of the bread, that I am actually sixty-three, that I have trouble locating myself on a map, that I cannot remember where I left off, who it was that lifted me up to the window to see inside the house next door with its floor-to-ceiling windows, wavy glass like terrariums fogging over. I use my littlest finger to trace a heart. Can you believe the sincerity of the thing? I have half a mind to tell you about the secret lining of my throat, the pressure valves along my spine. I have half a mind to show you what I’m like without my animal suit, without my high-topped boots. If I ask you will you turn your face away? If I ask you, will you close your eyes, will you learn to see me with your skin, will you learn to listen with your soft belly? Will you open your mouth to receive my babies? Will you hold them, will you father them like a mother, will you feed them like I would feed them if I could bear to stay here, bear the look of them so hairless, so easy to crush underfoot, so easy to eat them raw it’s been known to happen. Tomcats do it to bring the mama back into heat, lions too; if I ask you, will you eat them, take them out of this world, polish them in the grit of your throat, refine them inside your heart? They are only tiny iterations of the failed state of myself, my insistent traveling back in time to separate the girl from the spine, the spine from the skin, the skin from the hard knuckles underneath. I got them from rapping on doors, knock knock always knocking. Have I mentioned yet that I am an in-between sort of person? That I am neither this nor that blushing thing resting against the bedroom wall, that I would probably be a tree except that I have always been an especially shiny tongue-and-groove floor? Have I explained to you that I am as hard as hickory balls are hard when you grind them into the soft flesh of your hands? Do you see now what you have done? How once I was a soft thing full of babies. How now I am metal. How finally, I am razor.
