the body asks, am I fruit or stone, seed or flesh—
what marble edifice, sun-ripe Achilles, this body
bronzing beneath mythic summer sun, sin-shy
as the soft hands of the dusk-swelled sea, embodied
desire, am I, golden hour shame caught in gilded mirror
waxing myself ravenous, tidal wave coastline empty, disembodied
from both memory and reality? Longing casts stones
bruising, yes, the flesh, masticating, yes, the fruit, this body
which cannot name itself, yet carries its own secret aches unwilling,
still cannot desire itself as it does you, as neither fruit nor stone, seed nor flesh– this body.
