Letters to the human body

I.

I know how long it has been / since you touched wild grass / to guide its mutation to goodness / I know how long it has been / since you were spotlit in a room / us gathered in the light of you / while the city raged outside / Everything else blurs everything else / The headlines are ravenous crows chewing up the naked morning air /

We call to each other / our voices hollow and heavy / straining to land with our love intact / We fill the spaces between us / with jars of ginger root / black pepper / chilli oil / anything that lines the chest / with heat /

We figure out the groove of the news / how best to push back its chunky gears / to work the shrill sky in our bellies to brave laughter / You master the charge / cackling into uncertainty’s face /

until news comes with you in its teeth / At night the wind leans against the dark limbs of trees / The virus snarls in the undergrowth / shows us its second throat /

II.

Tell me again / of each fever-pink morning / how you stayed in bed / with a bruise on your cheek / like a promise retreating / how you searched your galleries of valves and nerve-fires / for a way to resist /

Tell me again / how you threw sand over your prayers / refused to kneel on tainted ground / how the psalms are stone melodies now / though heaven is a thousand chandeliers / each candle flicker a voice / uncaged /

Body / I have dreamed of opening your chest / and finding shrink-wrapped sculptures / immune to fang and foul breath / Each hour / a new confession / traced in dust / I don’t think I can work anymore / the star charts all emptied out / constellations blur / like deadlines /

Body / retrieve your animal essence / Let the air uncurdle / as it enters you /