What is a part of the body is a part of the earth,
like the tuber, the bulb waiting for the heat to permeate,
the amount of rain needed. Until then the deep freeze
or terrible storm is of the ether, the future, on the outside.
What is a part of the body is a part of the hunger. It is not
the menu, the careful choices. It is the preparation,
the taking in, the taste, the settling of the craving
at the dinner hour. What is a part of the body 
is a part of time, the expected and predicted,
the day to day, one season pulling the rug out
from under the other, not the absurd, the blind alley,
the dead end. What is a part of the body is like nothing
else: neither light nor lack, nor the sky’s height
nor gravity’s weight. The universe blinks in and out.
In that way it is like the body.