A Litany of
Bodies
My body is
alone in the co-working space,
chill in here and sunny outside, and
My body
takes a break to study a photo
of an injured child in Syria,
Body’s head
falls into body’s hands.
The body of
the child is being attended to,
but it isn’t clear how his
Body is
being supported. One medical worker
seems to guide the child’s head to look
At the body
of an older sibling. They look into each
other’s eyes,
the injured child’s eyes huge.
A second
medical worker prepares to suture.
Adult bodies
look on. “Civilians.” Human beings,
Their
bodies leaning in to support the child with their presence.
The body of
a girl child is in the foreground,
also looking on, an adult’s hand
On her
head. That’s what made me cry, all the
looking.
These
children have seen something together
that will separate them
From the
bodies of those of us who haven’t
seen it, haven’t been there
With our
actual bodies. In Michelangelo’s Pietà ,
The adult body of
Jesus is cradled in his mother’s lap,
And this is
what’s so terrible and beautiful
about being a mother.
To hold
The body,
to cradle it, to send it out into the world,
the brutality of the world
Upon the
body, which if we are to believe
the religious among us, houses
Also a
soul. Tell me. Are we, then,
to believe it?
This is beautiful. And sad. But mostly beautiful.
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