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Praise the miracle body The odd and undeniable mechanics of hand
Hundred boned foot, perfect stretch of tendon
Praise the veins that river these wrists
Praise the prolapsed valve in a heart
Praise the scars marking a gallbladder absent
Praise the rasp and rattle of functioning lungs
Praise the pre-arthritic ache of elbows and ankles
Praise the lifeline sectioning a palm
Praise the photographic pads of fingertips
Praise the vulnerable dip at the base of a throat
Praise the muscles surfacing on an abdomen
Praise these arms that carry babies, and anthologies
Praise the leg hairs that sprout and are shaved
Praise the ass that refuses to shrink or be hidden
Praise the cunt that bleeds and accepts, bleeds and accepts
Praise the prominent ridge of nose
Praise the strange convexity of rib cage
Praise the single hair that insists on growing from a right areola
Praise the dent where the mole was clipped from the back of a neck
Praise these inner thighs brushing
Praise these eyelashes that sometimes turn inward
Praise these hips preparing to spread into a grandmother’s skirt
Praise the beauty of the freckle on the first knuckle of a left little finger
We’re gone in a blizzard of seconds
Love the body human while we’re here
A gift of minutes on an evolving planet
A country in flux, give thanks
For bone, and dirt, and the million things that will kill us someday
Motion and the pursuit of happiness, no garauntees, give thanks
For chaos theory, ecology, common sense that says we are web
A planet in balance or out
That butterfly in Tokyo setting off thunder storms in Iowa
Tell me you don’t matter to a universe that conspired to give you such a tongue
Such rhythm or rhythmless hips
Such opposable thumbs
Give thanks, or go home a waste of spark
Speak, or let the maker take back your throat
March, or let the creator rescind your feet
Dream, or let your god destroy your good and fertile mind
This is your warning
This your birthright
Do not let this universe regret you
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