I Will Take Your Dead
and deploy them far beyond the bluish mountains
and green dark lakes, lichened trees, because I have
no substance of my own. Isn’t it queer, little one?
That we find ourselves immaterial. Someone said
render aid, someone said “esprit de corps” and I thought
it meant the soul leaving the body but I misunderstood;
it really meant “Go Team!” Needless to say,
it fractured my sensibilities—the Lord is my beam
splitter, my lumberjack, my Jewish uncle. My father
is dead. He’s been dead eight months and the further
I bury your corpses from their point of origin, the more
I feel divested. That word again, that cocooning, body
as clothing, as raiment, as chrysalis or warp of light.
There is nothing inside. So it is Thursday morning: I
build the fire, I cook the rice, I inject the fat part
of my stomach with a needle full of some shit
from AstraZeneca. Finally I bake the bread.
This is my body, but still I carry yours. I long to be.