Scaffold body
        after Kiki Smith
(by Éireann Lorsung)
 
 
We were used to living
attached to the ground.
 
So it was a surprise
 
to see others living
in suspension.
 
Bodies soft
 
as sunflower heads after
winter, hanging
 
from the scaffold.
 
We climbed on up.
The thought of bodies
 
even small ones
 
or ones we don't know
living like that
 
alone
 
is too much. Lying
on the scaffold's bars
 
our breath went in and out.
 
Our lungs moved
everything gently.
 
Swing, little soft
 
bodies,
swing.


(from Fifteen poems for Kiki Smith from "Her book: Poems", Milkweed Editions, 2013)

Moon on Crutches, 2002, cast aluminum and bronze