How Can You Make of This Body a Home (2024)
T!K! Williams
(a prayer)
When you felt with your skin for the first time,
did it shock you? Was it a new sensation?
Could you wrap your mind around it
like you could your hand around
your mother's finger
or like she wrapped the blankets around
your body?
That first night, among the animals,
among the few who were,
for a small portion of their lives
(and a smaller portion of yours),
your teachers instead of your students,
among people who had
bodies like yours, at least,
up to a point,
that night, when you had a body
like they did,
when you had a body like I do,
when you became, all at once,
did the learning hurt?
Miracle or not, salvation
or not, love and endless love
or not - were the nights still cold?
Did you sleep well, when
the crying passed?
Did the crying pass?
When you came from nothing -
from everything -
into something, did you think
you had a boundary now?
Did it lessen you? Filled as you were
with grace, made as you were
of light, wen the sun fell
and the stars said that
they wanted to try reflecting you
for a while instead, did you feel
that you had become small?
Were you afraid that you
had a limit now? A boundary?
Could you see your self in the mirror
or in the surface of the sea water
beneath your feet? Could you
point at it and, with a steady voice,
say that you were that, that that
was you? Could you do so
without fear? With joy in
your voice?
Could you see good in it?
Could it be something other
than the first shouted word
of your death sentence?
If you could choose to take
this flesh, if you
of your own will, subjected yourself
to having this body, having it
like I do, does that mean
that it has worth?