If we could lose the body,
skip it out over the flow of eternity
like a flung stone skimming a river,
shrug it off like a chip on the shoulder,
remove it like a sweater of hungry holes
needing to be fed and fed.
Without the body we would not need politics,
we would not need religion,
we would not need beds,
we would not wake up futilely chasing dreams
as they run from us to lose themselves in light.
Without these corporeal incumbrances there would be space
enough between us so that love would have no practical value.
We would not need to feel each other’s bones
through the ache of loneliness.
The body has caused monks to kneel on cold stones,
has caused nuns to seek refuge in the habits of prayer,
has caused some to denounce the homeland of the heart.
Where would the body be without a heart?
Even dead, the body needs things,
a coffin, a suit, a consuming pyre,
eight pallbearers carrying the one borne,
a priest speaking words to those who mourn
desperate to be certain of what can only be believed.