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Bodies (A History)

by Aaron Blair

Bodies are the hashmarks we use
to tick off of the years,
those memories of funerals, of coffins,
of those who slipped out of this world,
or were dragged, kicking and screaming
and calling out our names.

1990, my grandfather,
his forehead cold against
the palm of my hand,
because I dared myself to touch it.
It was the first time I saw my father cry,
because he loved a thing
he couldn't force himself to hate enough
and grieved and rejoiced at the loss of it.

1996, my grandmother,
wasted from cancer, a corpse
I never saw, rising again and again
from the grave to haunt my dreams.
Her lips were sewn shut around
what she could have known.
A dead mother couldn't betray her son.

2002, a classmate,
asleep on the tracks in his car,
they said the train took his head.
I couldn't bring myself to mourn him,
remembering the way he'd turn around in class,
just to taunt me for not being good enough
to deserve any human kindness.

2006, a cousin,
red-haired tomboy and the apple
of all other eyes but mine.
Squeezed in my father's iron fist,
I coveted the life of an abandoned child,
a girl glutted fat on sympathy,
while I starved thin in my soul from the lack.

2008, a fetus in my sister's womb,
while I held her hand in the dark.
We stared at the ultrasound screen
so that science could remind us
of the different ways in which animals hurt.
You could house death inside of you,
inches away from your persistent heart.

2010, my boyfriend's grandmother,
amputated legs hidden by her casket.
Mourning someone I never loved,
I understood what it meant
to share my life with someone,
the assimilation of his pain as my own.
I absorbed the shock of the blows
by remembering what they were worth:
the joy of knowing that he would smile again
if I could help him to carry on.

10/16/2010

Posted on 10/16/2010
Copyright © 2024 Aaron Blair

Member Comments on this Poem
Posted by George Hoerner on 10/16/10 at 12:27 PM

You've learned a lot in this life if you've learned to share someone's sorrow. Nice write.

Posted by Kristina Woodhill on 11/07/10 at 11:40 PM

This is very moving and meaningful. Thank you.

Posted by Kristine Briese on 02/20/11 at 07:35 PM

Aaron, I come here for inspiration, and you never disappoint. Beautiful piece.

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