by Gabe Moses
Forget the
images you've learned to attach
To words like cock and clit,
Chest and breasts.
Break those words open
Like a paramedic cracking ribs
To pump blood through a failing heart.
Push your hands inside.
Get them messy.
Scratch new definitions on the bones.
Get rid of the old words altogether.
Make up new words.
Call it a click or a ditto.
Call it the sound he makes
When you brush your hand against it
through his jeans,
When you can hear his heart knocking on
the back of his teeth
And every cell in his body is breathing.
Make the arch of her back a language
Name the hollows of each of her
vertebrae
When they catch pools of sweat
Like rainwater in a row of paper cups
Align your teeth with this alphabet of
her spine
So every word is weighted with the salt
of her.
When you peel layers of clothing from
his skin
Do not act as though you are changing
dressings on a trauma patient
Even though it's highly likely that you
are.
Do not ask if she's "had the surgery."
Do not tell him that the needlepoint
bruises on his thighs look like they
hurt
If you are being offered a body
That has already been laid upon an altar
of surgical steel
A sacrifice to whatever gods govern
bodies
That come with some assembly required
Whatever you do,
Do not say that the carefully sculpted
landscape
Bordered by rocky ridges of scar tissue
Looks almost natural.
If she offers you breastbone
Aching to carve soft fruit from its
branches
Though there may be more tissue in the
lining of her bra
Than the flesh that rises to meet it Let
her ripen in your hands.
Imagine if she'd lost those swells to
cancer,
Diabetes,
A car accident instead of an accident of
genetics
Would you think of her as less a woman
then?
Then think of her as no less one now.
If he offers you a thumb-sized sprout of
muscle
Reaching toward you when you kiss him
Like it wants to go deep enough inside
you
To scratch his name on the bottom of
your heart
Hold it as if it can-
In your hand, in your mouth
Inside the nest of your pelvic bones.
Though his skin may hardly do more than
brush yours,
You will feel him deeper than you think.
Realize that bodies are only a fraction
of who we are
They're just oddly-shaped vessels for
hearts
And honestly, they can barely contain us
We strain at their seams with every
breath we take
We are all pulse and sweat,
Tissue and nerve ending
We are programmed to grope and fumble
until we get it right.
Bodies have been learning each other
forever.
It's what bodies do.
They are grab bags of parts
And half the fun is figuring out
All the different ways we can fit them
together;
All the different uses for hipbones and
hands,
Tongues and teeth;
All the ways to car-crash our bodies
beautiful.
But we could never forget how to use our
hearts
Even if we tried.
That's the important part.
Don't worry about the bodies.
They've got this. |
