The Body Knew
by Tim Seibles

Long before there were words
Long before there was patience
The body was twiddling its thumbs

Long before this haze of lies this
Swirl of stupid things
Said and done
The body knew

Long before the animals ran
From men before the land
Were named before the clouds
Rose up and flew
The body knew

The body knew the tongue
Would come up with something to say
That the ears would listen that
The words would come like ants
That soon the brain would be
Infested and the head would grow
Hard and heavy
The body knew the body

Would be forgotten
The body knew the body
Would be used to take the brain
Here and there to make
Money and to make relationships
To assume the countless postures
Of idiocy – to sign the contracts
And treaties to stock the stores
The homes the schools the offices
The streets the prisons the battlefields
The body-bags the body knew

It would be lost
Under fabrics that soon the belly would
Hang and the back would stiff
That the days would pass the months would
Pass the years would pass
The body knew

It would be rated “X”
Because the body knew words
Would be used to deceive to
Decorate to pack the space between bodies until
Reaching out meant climbing the mountains
Of things said
The body knew

The brain would be a bully
That the face would be a canvas forever
Painted with words that love could never be
What they said it was
That a word
Was always a mask
The body knew the body

Would dream of headlessness the way
A breast dreams of bra-lessness of blouselessness
Of sunlight and weightlessness
The body knew that someday
It would have to move to forget to
Dance to forget that it knew
What it knew
That it knew