'Preparing the Body' by Helen Vitoria

   
  
We will meet the body under the stairs and tell no one what we touch there

We will envision the mouth of the body moving in strange song

We will touch the body as if a delicate sand castle blown over

We will let the body be a shade tree, crawling with spiders

We will smear it with honey and wait for it to crack its legs open

We will allow the body to skim water, to come undone

We will teach it the definition of lost and dark wine

We will let it run in Central Park with lambs

We will reach its lungs in a rage of whispers

We will teach it prayer and how to work its way back into the world

We will welcome it onto a green windowsill filled with death

We will write it inscriptions while weeping under fireworks

We will watch the body be beaten into disgrace

We will teach the body bone silence and call it witchcraft

We will take its dignity and arrange it in snow

We will recognize the body in traffic lights and be reminded of carnivals

We will spread the body, use thumb and palm and say: here, be happy

[first published at EXCLUSIVE Magazine, exclusive4.weebly.com/poetry.html]