The Body Folio
poems that speak to and about the human form
Editor’s Note: Home, heaven, hellscape, hurt: whatever we call it, the body is inarguably a key site of experience. Whether we view the physical form as a contained universe, a vehicle designed to drive the brain around, or a fruit surrounding the pit that is the maternal womb, we feel compelled, like Walt Whitman, to sing of it. In this issue pegged to the body, some famed contributors, like Matthew Lippman, call out the human form’s terrible, mythic power, even as others, like Marge Piercy, watch its vigor fade. More recent talents, like Tikva Hecht, relitigate the mind-body problem; still others, like Robert Guard, explore flesh as a mystical force. No matter how the poets included in this folio approach the body, the body, in their poems, approaches us — in all its sated and unsated glory. — Susan Comninos, Poetry Editor
HALLELUJAH TERRIBLE No other man has come down that way with his foot so big and his eyes so blue as if the last thing he wanted to do was come down with his foot and feel the beginning of earth run through his leg. No other man wanted to scream that way before the sun went down and the rain began in his underwear at the foothills opened mouth before the owl and hawk and other bird circling above that dead thing in roadway called godfoot. Who must know the pulse of two baby girls on the factory floor upset and upbeat before the whistles blow sounding mmmmmmm? Nothing else is as beautiful as the other man putting his fist through two planks of wood so large the timber men come for him for consultation on the last state of the trees. The trees are real. That is their state. They holler mom. There are no other men in the shower washing their arms for godsakes the arms so dark there are nights coming in close for comfort and stars wandering past other stars looking for help. The help is in the blood. The blood is as you expect. See it leak from his knuckles above the sink. Stain the sink. So jewel-like and unlike anything that might exist in any part of the universe swirling this way and into corners. No other man has blood as blue as sky in September before the angels choke on foliage and the trees blast off singing hallelujah hallelujah terrible terrible hallelujah. — Matthew Lippman
REFUAH SHLEMA L’IMA (A COMPLETE HEALING FOR THE GODDESS) after William Carlos Williams So much depends upon a tired mother ruled by the world she created with love. — Tree Smith Benedikt
THE UNINVITED When you get old, death is always somewhere in the house, maybe downstairs in the kitchen or hiding in the clothes closet. An uninvited guest: you never know when he’ll show himself. Not today, you hope. Will he come in the night? Sometimes he’s welcome after long pain or when there’s no one left you love or even friends. Dying is a lonely event. Anyhow. I did it once, was revived, and now I dread it more, but never wish for immortality. Every thing comes to an end. I don’t want to overstay like a speaker going way too long and you just wish their ego would let go and shut up. — Marge Piercy
CYPRESS after cancer The bark grows back. Re-covers the wound and reinvents beauty. Gnarled layers of pulp and weeping resin, twisted limbs: nothing to regret. That’s what I tell myself. I can’t really speak for the tree, can’t know its memory of injury or grief. Each aging trunk maps ordinary life; accumulated repair from storms and other assaults — even fire. A year ago, they burned me for the last time, after blade and poison concluded their work. Now I keep my hair short, close to the source of growing; my right side guards itself relentlessly. A blue dot the size of a freckle brands me where they aimed the beam, light fierce enough to kill. The scars cut deeper than anyone sees. Except, perhaps, the trees. — Elizabeth Rosner
THE ANGEL MADE OF MY THOUGHTS USES HER ONE PHONE CALL All this talk it keeps us, I know, from becoming each other when our bodies aren’t looking — only I don’t believe tongues should be used like hands. The sages agreed, said that words, such as ‘here, this is yours’ or ‘here, take this from me’ were only words, impotent as an elevated heart to affect exchange until an object was lifted, tugged, used like the cup you left on my bookcase, (the hair elastic I forgot in your car) — unless of course, you are giving to God, in which case words, only words, do anything, an outstretched arm seeming, perhaps, disrespectful, given that God used words, only words, to coax all this — the hair knotted round the band (the coffee ring beneath the cup) you, me, our cleaving — into existence. But between two bodies, what could one thought ever give to another? Enough, I tell you. Don’t you know if a sanctified animal is lost, you must bring another in its stead? And if the first returns? It cannot be offered or redeemed. Let it graze until a wound appears. Let it think it belongs to no one. — Tikva Hecht
EMET Who burns their field at night? It isn’t a fire from the corner of your eye it isn’t the north star or the little bear, it’s you, burning with a new light expanding and contracting at once magnanimous and miniscule. You drift over the field without answers above your wandering body the whole world is contained in your forehead. There’s a word for this lifetime that word circles you like a new planet. — Robert Guard
OUT OF NOWHERE, A SHIDDUCH Neither a borrower nor a bungler be. In love, the latter I’ve always been— Having lived an eternity alone for a Jewish man. I posted online for a new apartment in Crown Heights. Out of nowhere, a shidduch Was offered with a woman whose sole descriptor was a love for stray dogs. That is just how these days are— hounds visit The soft rooms of women while I busy myself bumbling Plans for a date that’ll only end with me Turning on the darkness of my empty bedroom. — Baruch November
SITTING AT THE POOL IN MY 55+ COMMUNITY by the lap lanes on Sunday, late morning one week after Purim and one month before the snowbirds fly home, I see Florida ladies lying on lounges skin dark, leathered like the lizards scampering by our feet. I’m trying to heed a mitzvah: Lashon hara— avoid the evil tongue of gossip. But voices carry, and the scene is ripe, the juice of gossip, drips down my chin. Gossip about this one and that one: Can you believe …? Maybe, maybe not. There’s a rumor the pool now closes at 10 pm because residents partied past midnight —sans suits. Dear Reader, I know you’re guilty too, imagining older bodies naked with nowhere to hide gravity’s work— balls and bellies drawn towards the earth, the earth that will cradle them soon enough. Oh gravity! Oh gossip! Oh wrinkled bare skin! What courage, inviting waters to lift all that’s fallen! Breasts smiling at the moon, nipples winking at stars. Oh Great Chutzpah! Oh God, the miracle of it all, Esther from Queens, Selma from Sea Cliff, Bernie and Brenda from Brooklyn. Miracles all. Oh, the naked miracle of You. — Diane Gottlieb
FIREFLIES In the dry summer field at nightfall, fireflies rise like sparks. Imagine the presence of ghosts flickering, the ghosts of young friends, your father nearest in the distance. This time they carry no sorrow, no remorse, their presence is so light. Childhood comes to you, memories of your street in lamplight, holding those last moments before bed, capturing lightning-bugs, with a blossom of the hand letting them go. Lightness returns, an airy motion over the ground you remember from Ring Around the Rosie. If you stay, the fireflies become fireflies again, not part of your stories, as unaware of you as sleep, being beautiful and quiet all around you. — Marilyn Kallet
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These poems are so beautiful!
In particular "Fireflies" It is a beautiful narrative that combined Diane Gottlieb's inner thoughts and observations. She expressed the beauty of aging and the universal fear of aging. With tenderness and care. I could see and feel each Floridian lady and the beachy environment.
Love, love, love.
Loving the variety. "Cypress" and "The Uninvited" resonate the most, for different reasons.