The Back that Says Yes

 

We look in the mirror,

Rearrange features,

Hold our chin at the proper angle

Hide the blemish

Find our maximum impact

Cheekbones highlit

Teeth blinding

No-sweat

Camera ready,

Confident smile.

 

But the front of you is a lie,

Armored steel,

Too practiced, too thought out,

It’s the front of you that stops;

Pushes the world away,

Says no thank you

Trying to cut down

Don’t go in for

Not my cup of

Don’t smoke

Gluten free

Don’t touch

Indoor voice

Walk don’t run in a calm and orderly

 

While the back of you says go,

Those parts behind held in tucked up and forgotten

Are the greyhound you straining at the slip:

The biceps femoris and the erector spinae

The gluteus maximus and the scapular retractors,

The posterior deltoid

And the secret language of toes,

The extensor digitorum and the fibularis brevis,

Those parts that take the heart unawares

Point your face to the light

Extend you, stretch you,

Sprint, leap, thrust, copulate

 

Two dimensions aren’t enough

For all that heartbreak and ecstasy,

The confining world with its

Personal ad

Need to define you

Bank manager, father, employee-of-the-month

Four walls and a postage stamp screen

And so little that stands you tall

Or lifts your head, expectant.

 

Surely you miss the peripheral,

Unhinged, unmediated

Backside

That stands you up like a bowsprit

All your ancestors

And all your hidden history

Behind you like an army

And the spine, with its suspension-bridge architecture,

The amphibious tail at its foundation;

The L vertebrae at the root like a redwood;

Curving up then back, then in,

Tapering to delicate ivory,

And all your senses

Ascending through its angel-hair tangle of nerves

Lover’s flesh and bay leaves and fine baby hair

Soft earth and blades of grass;

Notes off a French horn, the taste of shellfish

And the unmistakable scent of father, mother, wife, husband, and child—

Coursing upward on invisible currents

Don’t forget them, don’t forget that,

That glorious, urgent back of you, the back that says yes.