Stifling an urge to dance is bad for your health — it rusts your spirit and
body
Move it
Too many of us have a skipping spirit but a sit-still body.
Myelin
I love you with all my bones — the heart is too ephemeral.
Symptoms, waiting for signs
I love the body. Flesh is so honest, and organs
Losing count
Damnit! I binged
again II day
IV life was hard
and so I
VIII my stress away.
O why do I so of X gorge?
Since turning XL
I’ve been extra large.
Self-conviction
when you live too hard
forty is a warning
fifty, penalty
Proof of youth
Be thou not ashamed of lust —
desire was born in primal dust
it mingled with the seas of life
to make the mud we know as love
Eye floaters
snakes and worms
squiggles and sperms
phantom insects
crawling, free-falling
Wizen
but on the bright side
middle age aridity
concentrates essence
Whole body, whole spirit
We thank
on our knees
with folded hands
for full bellies
and fuller hearts
Sugar shock
my willpower has become
a fraction of what it was—
my sweet tooth is now
much greater than my resolve—
and the laboratory reports
that my blood glucose
no longer measures in
milligrams per deciliter—
but in sugar cubes squared
Well-becoming
Wellness is the art of healing before you’re sick.
March Night
I shook off the house like a hooded cape,
And came out, free, into the March-blown street…
At a lash of the gale, at a sight of the cloud-tattered skies,
As a coat discarded,
I shook off civilization
And became wild,
And my naked soul raced the clouds,
And the flavor of the Earth was fresh and primitive…
—James Oppenheim (1882–1932), “March Night,” War and Laughter, 1916