What did he mean, "the body electric",
that old poet, as if canals of blood and plasm
suddenly carried lightning?
As if, dragged, embedded, dredged,
bodily parts somehow flittered,
aloof,
disconnected,
trailing up above the world,
like so many whisps of smoke,
and not as they are, grounded, foundational,
dirt-bound.
I sing the body aquatic!
And do away with that old poet's speech,
of corruption and defilement.
I sing the body dying, and decaying,
and real, and mottled,
and patched, and dusted,
with the mud of living, the refuse of time,
the roots of kissing, the muck of love,
the bruises of reciprocity, the hickeys of god,
the blood of ages, the regolith of life.