by Mele Martinez
Thinking about, writing about, talking about this body
will numb me.
I will be partially vacant
and this void will flicker
tangling intangible me
with woven corporeal.
Even before birth
my aging instrument I played,
and somehow it is a stranger to me.
I don’t know why.
Dancing, I can’t say that I really “feel”
this body. I am aware
of it, certainly
Yet it is non sense
at least, it is not how I feel
the sun, my child, the
waves, desire.
This vessel is just that
a home for me.
Dancing, it breaks
And I burst through the cracks
Dancing, I don't command much.
I don’t know how this works.
I know that it happens.
In this way, my body
doesn’t matter too much.
The fact
that it exists is pretty important, but the form
it takes
less so.
I am short,
I am round,
I am crooked.
these descriptions fade into
empty. nothing.
The meat is in the message– not the flesh.
Not the fat.
Not the things that might attract or disgust.
This biology of me
is the runner, the gone-between me and you.
The words.
And this is how
I can dance.
