A Definition of Poetry

I know I will die a difficult death –
Like anyone who loves the precise music of her own body,
Who knows how to force it through the gaps in fear
As through the needle’s eye,
Who dances a lifetime with the body – every move
Of shoulders, back, and thighs
Shimmering with mystery, like a Sanskrit word,
Muscles playing under the skin
Like fish in a nocturnal pool.
Thank you, Lord, for giving us bodies.
When I die, tell the roofers
To take down the rafters and ceiling
(They say my great-grandfather, a sorcerer, finally got out this way).
When my body softens with moisture,
The bloated soul, dark and bulging,
Will strain
Like a blue vein in a boiled egg white,
And the body will ripple with spasms,
Like the blanket a sick man wrestles off
Because it’s hot,
And the soul will rise to break through
The press of flesh, curse of gravity –  
The Cosmos
Above the black well of the room
Will suck on its galactic tube,
Heaven breaking in a blistering starfall,
And draw the soul up, trembling like a sheet of paper –
My young soul –
The color of wet grass –
To freedom – then
“Stop!” it screams, escaping,
On the dazzling borderline
Between two worlds –
Stop, wait.
My God. At last.
Look, here’s where poetry comes from.

Fingers twitching for the ballpoint,
Growing cold, becoming not mine.

A DEFINITION OF POETRY