particular reminders when prayers for the body aren’t enough
when dusty purple fruits breathe in
the sunsets & smog of their cityscapes: that’s the answer.
branches dangle down splintering poles
& fenceposts & abandoned pianos
into gestures of hurry & freeze
who makes this body what it is
what makes this body what it’s made of
into questions of dusk & breath & billow
& palm & squeeze & pulse & pluck & ooze
with such silhouettes, what gets left when light
enters the room?
the fruits’ bursted juices all over an unsuspecting wrist
all over city corners stretch
hold
hurry
dusky purple veins branch a map of smoke & defiance
throats in yellow light
flick away dust from the skin you’ve seen before
unbidden orbits: the body wrapped & unwrapped
the body frozen in its glassy musics
it’s not a question of streets or piano keys
it’s not a question to fill veins with tendrils of carved bark
& wrapped & unwrapped
when the body’s wrappings strip themselves into collage of
gummed muscle marrowly melting into
pinking bone here’s a question:
is the body swallowed in fabric to hide
or to hold it
along the fenceline
the headiness of plums
in shadow in
recline
lean into it
intertwine branches with every last shadow
every particle of smog
watch the body hurry—
watch the body—