Triptych: At the Massage Therapy Clinic

I

With her hands,
she asks my body
to let go of what it’s carrying.

The body (me) 
resists.

These are mine, I want to say        
of all the rooms of grief 
she’s coaxing out of flesh.

I’ve carried them all this way     for so long 
just to leave them here. 


II

Remember the body
that was once split open at the seam
where a tendon snapped
retreating into muscle

Remember the body 
arms and hips frozen from too many hours spent doubled over
pulling weeds and radishes

Remember the body bruised
and the body weeping
the body ripped open
and the body healed

Remember the body its cabbagey smell and bitter taste
after a night of hard drinking and unremarkable sex

Remember the body chastened
and the body reticent
the body as shelter
and as threshold

Remember the body running into the needly rain after a spring of drought
Remember the body a switchblade in dark waters

Remember the body sequined and glittering
the body quickening and deepening
the body loveless and burgeoning
the body fleeting—
a ripple in bathwater

Remember the body a chasm of desire
the body chrysalis
husk
the body almost but not quite

Remember the body its aftermaths
and its disbeliefs
its hellbent carelessness and its bewilderment 

Remember the body tectonic and shifting
the body careworn
the body overfed
imperfect

Remember the body its greenest astonishments
and revelations
even in its wreckage
even in the brackish rooms it builds for itself


III

in a room inside my body        in a long hallway       
     in a dark box full of stale air          
i say to the dark        come out of me so i might rest     
i have been too long under the sun
        the weeds have grown tall       
and the ticks and fleas are bleeding my legs
    and i do not know where home is