The Author To His Body On Their Fifteenth Birthday, 29 ii 80

“There’s never a dull moment in the human body.”                                           —The Insight Lady

Dear old equivocal and closest friend,

Grand Vizier to a weak bewildered king,

Now we approach The Ecclesiastean Age

Where the heart is like to go off inside your chest

Like a party favor, or the brain blow a fuse

And the comic-book light-bulb of Idea black out

Forever, the idiot balloon of speech

Go blank, and we shall know, if it be knowing,

The world as it was before language once again;

Mighty Fortress, maybe already mined

And readying to blow up grievances

About the lifetime of your servitude,

The body of this death one talkative saint

Wanted to be delivered of (not yet!),

Aggressively asserting your ancient right

To our humiliation by the bowel

Or the rough justice of the elderly lecher’s

Retiring from this incontinence to that;

Dark horse, it’s you we’ve put the money on

Regardless, the parody and satire and

The nevertheless forgiveness of the soul

Or mind, self, spirit, will or whatever else

The ever-unknowable unknown is calling itself

This time around—shall we renew our vows?

How should we know by now how we might do

Divorced? Homely animal, in sickness and health,

For the duration; buddy, you know the drill.

Howard Nemerov was born on February 29th, 1920 in New York. He died of cancer at his home in University City, Missouri on July 5th 1991.