By Karen Pittelman
Most wild animals will avoid
human contact.
But the rat longs to come
as close as it can.
I knew a girl who worked
at a Halloween park,
her job was to
lie in a glass coffin
full of rats
and let them crawl on her.
People say
mind over body
as if it were
any old thing.
As if the mind did not
make its own materials—
mushroom spores beneath
its rich dark loam,
waiting only for the right rain.
What has happened
never finishes happening,
And we remain its
diligent chorus girls
endlessly forcing
the bones of our feet
to its will.
