I was randomly searching body poems on poets.org and
came across "Question" by May Swenson. I was feeling a little bad about my own body, and this
one was a nice surprise that helped put things in perspective for me. My body
is my home. She asks what she will do without her body. And ends: “How will it be / to lie in the sky /
without roof or door / and wind for an eye // With cloud for shift / how will I
hide?” This isn’t her point, but how many of us beat ourselves up constantly
for our body's defects? And yet, where would we be without it? Dead, of course.
Possibly nowhere, but possibly, as she says, floating around doing nothing,
really. So thank you, body, for existing. I could do nothing without you. I
could not think or feel or read or write or eat chocolate or laugh with my
family without you, you beautiful, wonderful thing. There's also something about hiding here, and from what, I'm not exactly sure, but it could be from that brutal openness of death. But I'm not going there now, because I got what I came for.
