Even now when muscles slacken and bones thin out
-- and why do they, if not to let in light -- the body opens
to cordial air, the courtesy of trees, fork-tailed swallows
in flight, their joints and ligaments ours. Atavistic us.
In early angel state, eye and ear migrate. They're at our elbow.
Down on our knees. The world's infolded in every limb.
In September's stirabout, what was enough, is not enough:
Frost at night and summertime by day, the air is appetite.
The stipple tongue's all over taste. The lucent skin is lavish.
Turns out that old adage about angels on a pin
refers to the body: How the five jig and sing in every cell.
Up out of the year's sleep, the body divines dispersal.
What's next is near, and already we are here in afterthought.
Compton, Anne. "Even Now" The Best Canadian Poetry in English. Toronto: Tightrope Books, 2009.
