YEAR OF THE BODY

for the first time in this life 

I am a scientist

small bearded man outside the cafe

even asks me what I’m studying

I’m just trying to decipher 

this diagram of the body 

with bands around it

like rings of saturn 

trying to determine 

the bands around me

I think I have jaw, throat, pelvis, yes

I think I learned something about 

being sneaky crouching in the spine 

of sticky Garfield books 

instead of playing tetherball

Alexis the other white girl in class

asked me to do macrame 

we tied hemp to the chain link fence 

blushed at everything ate ruffles 

on the roof of her modern metal home 

now she has a baby, jogs by   

I don’t have a baby, don’t jog 

don’t know which I’d rather 

be a baby or have a baby

in this year of so much

microbial determination

we still insist on

explaining ourselves

I can explain that

I’d still like to be babies together

have babies together

especially since we are stuck/blessed 

here in such unimaginable futures 

as if I know what’s been imagined

I don’t know

but maybe I feel

hello year of the body  

dancing to songs like jewels

the thing is now I know/feel

everything will be alright  

because true expulsion lasts 

20 minutes tops, that’s science 

it’s the waiting that’s killer 

I imagine deaths of those within me 

and without me

all day

almost lazily die myself

driving down Rainier Avenue 

thank God who is a mountain

for poets and olive oil  

for armpit hair 

and nipples