What can I tell you about this body but that it is mine?
Not my mother’s though she tried harder than any to mold
its soft form. Not my father’s though I carry his color.
Often I wish I were an already discovered fact.
My body and its histories known like the mapped,
the chronicled, the clichéd phrase at home in every mouth.
I wish to give you my shovel, my miner’s helmet, lamp affixed.
Will you take these words – every word – until all I have
are ten fingers to trace my lines at this exact moment?
So that for once I will have a whole being beneath my hands—
all that will ever be and never be again.
