The Body

by Chella Courington 

For words the body searched Rachel’s vanilla yogurt. For more than Omega-3 DHA and five live cultures. Where were the long thin pods rising from the blood of Princess Xanat and her mortal lover? Heads rolled into vines of tropical orchids, earth the color of heat. Before dawn the body spooned Titian’s Venus. Legs muscular and tight held the body till it slid off into a pool of salt and sweet gum. No hand covered lips. Black flower, it called, swimming upstream.

The body is useful. Rose Marie told me I could send it to travel while wrapped inside the gold yellow afghan. Thursday I sent the body into morning light crying, tears flooding the bedroom and hall, the wall stained into a dirty footpath. The body waded through to catch the 936 to Oakland. In Guadalupe a man, tall in khakis and a blue blazer, sat next to it, newspaper stretched over lap. Right hand tilted the front page slightly, Debates Rage Over Elk Feeding. Hidden somewhere under the classifieds was the left. Nothing seemed to move except the train, jostling newsprint. The body felt steel wheels knocking at its skin. Its leg flattened by the speed, climbing higher, pressing against folds and pubic hair. The body cinched, corsets pushing lungs into intestine. Felt medieval plates slip over lotion. The body threw its right arm like a javelin between the seats. Bitch.

February 20 the body tricked me. It tossed and coughed all night. By morning drenched me in sweat, never saying why. Like a slab of short ribs in Mr. Yeoman’s shop, bone cut through its back. I covered it in layers of blue flannel but the body climbed back on me. I hacked—dry raspy noise. Stuffed my ears with cotton but sound sliced through the fiber, pounding my drums. Buried my head in pillows but the ringing would not stop, white keys out of tune. My skull split, bits of brain stuck to the wall. At the red graffiti the body cackled.