Prescription
Eyes come, go:
screen, hands, screen, face, screen, me?
You ask for the potted history:
fifty second film-wrapped setback on a plate.
It is outside, separate. It is not yours.
No, it’s not yours.
You would have to mangle a whole body
into a head, into a shoulder, into a lung –
stretching down with pinky toe,
ring toe, until every toe
and membrane mimicked mine.
Until your calves – caught,
knees – translated onto knees
(torn cruciate ligament on the right.)
Until your flanks deciphered soft grazes
on the lodes,
on the hair-wisps of thighs.
Midriff overlapping midriff, fingering
every episode, exposure on the soft,
Linea belly Negra line.
This line is my line.
This face is my line.
You can’t transpose a middle –
every cell: event imprint
a rib / deltoid– equally weighted – eagerness / dis ease.
A chest – circled and sucked clean of milk,
like the milk: infusing growth / feeling
into bellies, bones.
You can’t map a muscle memory of arms, hands –
warred in sport and
loss-circled in grief.
Or an ecstasy that rockets in the throat, announces to the head
to be moved by art, a one-off action,
or by uncomplicated, childlike joy.
And you can’t become a body –
lying on a dark bed. When everything is out of reach
and can’t quite be grappled with either.
And you can’t become a body –
lying on a bed. Become a body, when everything is out of reach
lying on a bed. Become a body, when everything is out of reach. Become a body that can’t
quite be grappled with either.
You can’t, you can’t, you can’t.
So you prescribe these pills instead.