Today's poem is by Jared Harél

Let Our Bodies Change the Subject
       

In the kitchen, with the kids finally asleep
and news of another shooting
in the space between us,
you confess you think death
might feel like giving birth, the body
insistent, having its way.
You say you'd never been so at the mercy
of yourself as you were on that bed,
in that cloud-thin gown, and just the knowing
it was coming—ruthless
transformation.
    I have no good response
to ruthless transformation, and so it hangs there
above a bowl of tortilla chips
and black bean salsa
we've decided will be dinner. It lingers
while a reporter frames chaos
as developments, her shoulders rinsed in darkness
and revolving red lights. I want
to kiss you. Build asylum inside you.
Let our bodies change
    the subject, the channel
to cartoons. Before night pulls away
down the flickering interstate,
I want one ruined thing utterly redeemed: a death-
toll rescinded, a swastika removed,
my uncle's melanoma caught early enough
to cut—a beige Band-Aid
halfway down his calf. It had looked,
my aunt said, like little more
than an ink spot. I didn't get nervous
till it didn't wash out.

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Copyright © 2024 Jared Harél All rights reserved
from Let Our Bodies Change the Subject
University of Nebraska Press
Reprinted by Verse Daily® with permission