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Joanna Sit

In Which The Body Contemplates Its Own Fidelity

 

           What we do with this amnesiac thing 
That never tells the truth that moves against our nature: We live

 

           In fear of the wreckage in its mouth, dread of our story
Changing daily on its tongue, cynical & shredded from slacking lips 

           Sometimes it swears eternity when clearly everything dies. It says
The wars are elsewhere & ignores the ships burning on the open sea

            It walks away from the glint of knives, mimes 
Another story to confuse the history of our scars 
       
           It plunges our hands in the dirt to pull the roots
Of the sapling that has not yet seen the sun

 

           & tells us to bury our dead our loss to move on  
From it, to forget, that there’s no hurt, no such thing 

           As pain. Oh honey, let’s believe that misdirection 
In its endless transmutation, its scent of harrowed rot

 

           Do the cha-cha like movie stars under neon starlight
Under silver linden flowers under solstice sky

 

           Let’s be faithful in a room full of mourners 
Let’s eat, let’s drink, let’s make songs from a life of lies
   
           Let’s make a body of proof that we came from water
Where we heard the humming wave before we were born 

           There will be a season of lilies when a boat’s waiting 
To take us into another life another mind another & another

           Let’s sit here in the dark, kiss long & hard
While we still have time, like in our green youth wanting

           Let’s know all about that sweetness of days
That weight of yearning when the music cuts through a world

 

           About to end, the peal of bells float above trees 
Anchors years hidden from bone & flesh & throat & eyes

           Let’s believe everything
           Let’s dance 
 

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