As I sit in porcelain canoe, submerged
in lukewarm bathwater, which grows
colder and colder each passing second
I take a long, longing look down at my
belly-bowl full of jelly-rolls and wonder,
am I worth more than the sum of my parts?

Am I more than *** and ****?
Am I more than the 206 from 270 bones,
give or take a few here and there,
without which, I would be entirely jelly?
Am I more than the lips, the teeth,
the tip of the tongue?
more than the skin and hair and
and miles of veins pumping
life in pulse after pulse as I sit doing
nothing but contemplating my worth?

if you took it all away,
if you cold-shouldered  
this body I have come to
love and hate and love again
in one lifetime,
if you held the meat,
would the milk be enough?


I have fed you with milk, and not with meat: for hitherto ye were not able [to bear it], neither yet now are ye able (1 Corinthians 3:2).