The World Like the Body

The world like the body
has grown old and tired of love*
has slouched itself into a shell—
munching its own knees
until it has forgotten forgiveness.

It hammers nails into its own eyes
to shut down what's outside—
(My IDENTITY is all that matters!)
(I'm a slash slash slash slash
slashing this body into pieces!)

Its arms are too hyperextended
to ever touch its heart again.
Its ears have turned
deaf automatic from its beating.

Creases on the back of its hand
are of a long drought of contact.
(Contact! Contact!
Who are we? where are we?)
Its skin is now nothing
but a porous cage.
Its cells are all but that—cells.
("This is where I end.
That is where you begin.")

To kiss its forehead is to warn.
To kiss its lips is to conquer.
Agendas end on its toenails
but it will never have them cut.

And when after much munching
it has sutured its own mouth to sleep,
the body is left on the forest
floor beneath the undergrowth
to fall apart and whatever
is left of love (whatever that means)
bleeds out into the soil
where it shall linger
before the first rain.

* Title and first line from Eric Gamalinda's "The Skin of War."