I sing if I protest the electric body

it’s artificial
that I breathe by moving air
and the heartbeat
is
machine-aided
too
and all the other metal
in there for help arteries
be arteries

with marks of sutures past
holes
or for scars bumps and ridges here
or there

and we could say
see the other
guy
to sound beyond it all while inside
it all and
is there pain
phantom or daytime
maybe
encroaching as protest
in
aging

so I am old and I am new
and
there are operations
offending all the freedom-wish
inside me

someday to cease
to relent
set down
and know the better source from which
all decent quickening is
always

by cosmic grace
and will

c l couch


(“the body electric” crafted and used by Whitman and then Bradbury)

photo by David Levêque on Unsplash