ETYMON

are we not vessels, hollow buoyant holds
spine a mast rising from pelvis, sacrum a keel
 
do bones not flow with urgent spring sap
and arteries with vital fluvial spirits
 
are nerves not a seamless
hyphal web, mycelium dancing
 
is skin not woven and muscles sinewed
with leaf veins, tree roots
 
and the heart, the inmost molten core
beating tremors, cracking crusts
 
until we decay to dust
spinal cord pithed by Death
 
to still that restless sense
the truest beast inside us

“ETYMON” appeared in Marci Vogel’s commentary series “A poetics of the étrangère” at Lunch Ticket, May 2016