Yoga Poetry – Body of Time
What did you expect?, the knee asks.
Just the way of the world, says the elbow.
The wrinkles of the knuckles laugh harder,
and the little toes on both feet turn out
as if escape was possible. This body of time
takes another breath, sends another valentine,
ignores another blast of hatred even as it learns
new tricks: ways to hang upside down in ropes
at the yoga studio, or catch the melting ice cream
before it escapes from cone to sidewalk.
Since it became an I, it revels in being owned,
in being mine and not yours. It bends toward
the drought, and expands when it rains.
It fits itself perfectly in the flannel sheets, in love
with the concentric wind the ceiling fan makes.
It’s a month old, or 11 years, or somewhere past 54,
and while it doesn’t know all the words to that tune,
it’s smart enough to know how it internalizes age
like the sky does for what we call heat lightning.
It’s a borderless land of weather and mood,
a container for what weakness and strength make
out of the too-long car ride, a thunderhead of
supposed needs, a quiet rumble in deep sleep
and something it was desperate to remember.
It’s all the time in the world I have, so says
the swirl of the fingerprint, the indentation
on the left ring finger, the slight rise of a scar line
on the clavicle, the branches of veins on the back
of the wrists, the music of the eyebrows,
the heart’s muscular clutch and release.