I discovered I have a body, the other day,
in corpse pose.

As if coming to life
required a little bit of dying.

For a moment I seemed to belong
harder to this planet.

My back on the ground
each cell kissing the earth
with no sound—barefoot.
The palms facing the sky
on the world’s barycenter;
each limb giving its shape
to surrender.

The jaw semi-closed
to my heart’s unchewed
questions.

Inhale, exhale.
Expand lungs’ capacity
for quiet. Making space
for lack to evaporate.

Inhale, exhale. Playing silence
by ear. Filling with breath
the inner traffic
of being here.

Then release the hands’ old
reflex to clench—sweet
succumbing.
Breathe in, breathe out—
into a feral presence.

Before I did not understand the language
of quiet. I could not receive this fingertips
level of knowledge. Born with the belonging
wrong, each nerve a signature
of unforgotten tension. Tight—
just like a room with no love in it.

Fluent in foreign, in the abroad
of me—I didn’t know,
there is no elsewhere
to this home. 

Now back to the wisdom
of the spine. Its snake-like
belonging to the back 
of my mind.

As infrastructure
of life.

As bare reality of lying
on the ground. No longer
barely around. For:
this is you, literally
no way out.

You’d better make yourself
at home in this ribcage.
This whole thing called self
being unfinished business
regardless.