Mind Over Body

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.

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