Some days this body is a repository for paper valentines,
an old-fashioned brass mailbox with its lock on a sundial swirl
and the gold of the numbers chipping away.
Other days it’s a juice glass.
Other days it’s a blister.
Other days it’s what’s in the blister pack, planets of pharmaceuticals,
candy, poison dollhouse gumballs.
Other days the gods stretch an octagon across this body
to see what it is missing, like a career or a child.
This body undergoes the treatment that is worse than surgery.
This body was once nice and full of sangria, a pitcher blown from a bubble off a lip.
At night this body rearranges its private sterling furniture
to make the whole world a different kind of conversation.
In the morning this body is a unit of heft,
is a pilgrim, a plagiarism, is a breadwinner.
Part of this body is killing its other parts.
This body is my mother’s body.
Some days when I forget to stop it, it is my own.
--Arielle Greenberg, 2004