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) |