The Passing of Flesh

 

My skeleton is

All that I am , all that is truly me,

All that I have that is mine by right -

And that, nothing but a collection of

Bleached and foetal feelings,

Bony aspirations and, perhaps,

Hidden in the marrow, a fledgling soul.

All this is but a weak, fragile and collapsible frame;

An existence, but not a life.

All that is the flesh of me -

All that constitutes

The vitality of musculature, the excitement of thought,

The perpetuity of blood, the reliability of heart

And the strong sack of skin

That holds it all in -

Is the gift of those who are other to me.

For I am of myself but the expression of others -

Passive to the process

By which meat is moulded;

By which flesh is fitted.

Admired or abandoned, cursed or called,

Loved or left, kicked or kissed -

I react

And, inch by inch, am built.

To control,

To reach out and grasp,

To gather and to knit,

To claim as myself all that is me

And to bind all that is mine

To my own

Inviolable bone

Is to become - and be.

And then, once constituted,

Inch by inch I erode

Like an ancient cliff.

For living is giving,

And the giving

Is the passing

Of the flesh

In which the bones of us all

Are dressed.