Instructions For A Body

Praise the miracle body: the odd
and undeniable mechanics of hand,
hundred-boned foot, perfect stretch
of tendon.

Tell me there are no gods then,
no master plan for this anatomy
with its mobile and evident spark.

Someone says “children of light,”
and another, “goddessfragment,” and
another, “chosen.” A dozen makers,
myriad paths, one goal:

some scalpel, some chisel, some crazed
sentimental engineer giving rib, giving
eyelash, giving gut and thumb --

all mattering. All set down
in a going world, vulnerable
and divine.

In the beginning was the word.

Or, before time there was a void
until a voice said “I” -- and was.

Or there was star and dust,
explosion and animal, mineral, us.

Praise the veins that river these wrists.
Praise the prolapsed valve in a heart.
Praise the scars marking a gall bladder absent.
Praise the rasp and rattle of functioning lungs.
Praise the pre-arthritic ache of elbows
and ankles.
Praise the lifeline sectioning a palm.
Praise the photographic pads of fingertips.
Praise the vulnerable dip at the base of a throat.
Praise the muscles surfacing on an abdomen.
Praise these arms that carry babies
and anthologies.
Praise the leg hairs that sprout,
and are shaved.
Praise the ass that refuses to shrink
or be hidden.
Praise the cunt that bleeds
and accepts, bleeds
and accepts.
Praise the prominent ridge
of nose.
Praise the strange convexity of ribcage.
Praise the single hair that insists on growing
from a right areola.
Praise the dent where the mole was clipped from the back
of a neck.
Praise these inner thighs brushing.
Praise these eyelashes that sometimes turn inward.
Praise these hips preparing to spread
into a grandmother’s skirt.
Praise the beauty of the freckle
on the first knuckle of a left little finger.

We're gone, in a blizzard of seconds.
Love the body human
while we're here, a gift of minutes
on an evolving planet, a country
in flux. Give thanks

what we take for granted: bone and dirt,
and the million things that will kill us
someday, motion and the pursuit
of happiness--no guarantees. Give thanks

for chaos theory, ecology, common sense that says
we are web. A planet in balance or out, the butterfly
in Tokyo setting off thunderstorms in Iowa,
tell me you don't matter to a universe that conspired
to give you such a tongue, such rhythm
or rhythmless hips, such opposable thumbs –
give thanks or go home a waste of spark.

Speak, or let the maker take back your throat.
March, or let the creator rescind your feet.
Dream or let your god destroy your good and fertile mind.

This is your warning, this
your birthright. Do not let
this universe regret you.

© Marty McConnell, 2005