Poem 353

I’ve always been fascinated by the way the simple action of standing up started the evolutionary cascade for our species, allowing us to think our way to dominance of the planet while simultaneously giving rise to most of our physical ailments – and the way that maps onto the bible story of loss of innocence, eating of the fruit of self awareness (aka knowledge of good and evil) and consequently being banished from a blissful paradise of instinct and ignorance with penalties including women ever more having to give birth in agony … no cow will ever write a book called Treat Your Own Back …

Eden

Your spine used to be a suspension bridge
remember?
                       you don't
remember

your ribs weren't a cage then
but a basket
holding kidneys liver heart and baby
like ripe tomatoes
you had this hard band of muscle
up the back of your neck
to hold your head up
                                           it seemed best
to keep the brain light

holding that baby was easier
it swam like a parachutist
under your pelvis
                                     and
there was less pain involved
in getting it out

now look at you
                                no local authority 
would issue a permit
to stack those vertebrae
up like that

gravity sent us out of the garden
with shooting pains
                                         completely
unimpressed with our party trick
of getting up on all twos
to walk