My Body as Art                  
                                                                                                          

I learn to love angles, sharp elbows.

Straighter lines come with age. Crescent moon 

crook of the second finger, both hands. 

 

I pay attention to spiders. A funnelweaver

crawls on pale vellum, thinned skin. Black and gold 

legs crossing my arm. Afternoon in the garden.

 

Tendons, ligaments, veins are blue tattoos rising.

Alive in my own slow dissolving, blurred lines 

through my eveningtime eyes.

 

My body becomes a starker art.

Its dances a slow devoted descent 

toward Earth. 

 


 
 

In Stones Beneath the Surface: a Poetry Anthology, ed. Andreas Gripp, Black Mallard Press, November 2023