“Beautiful Bodies” – By Amy Berstein

1. Skin

With a wave of my hand—

       yes, this hand wrapped in wrinkled skinfolds
       striated with veins like ridges across a mountain range,
       its ancient beauty splayed for admiring—

With a wave of this hand
I banish the illusionary elixir,

this boastful bottle of serum, a trumped-up mixture of
vitamin A1 commingled with vitamin B3

drowning in

propylene glycol
stearyl ether
dicaprylyl carbonate
isohexadecane

calling itself retinol in a tiny-stoppered bottle—
stopper your ears, ladies, as the shouting begins

for younger looking skin!
an even glow!

I wave this loose-skinned hand in curt dismissal toward
Big Pharma salivating over its money-minting patent formulas,

peddling shame and barely concealed disgust
disguised as a conveyor belt of brainwashing chemicals

that swear to you they will plump your collagen and
expedite cell regeneration

give you back your best self—
or the self you expect to become

but this old hand knows better, now,
than to swallow lies saying I’m not good enough

not fit to be seen in public with wrinkles that
trumpet my status, my reality, my wisdom

I wave away all those seeking to stigmatize me
and with arms open wide, proclaim: Take me as I am!

2. Bones

Bones are the world’s truest democracy,
a jointed confederation of cooperation

common to every humanoid
irrespective of skin tones or sexual pleasures

What if our bones could speak for us?

I envision a convention of bones
in all their hardened ivory glory

bending and jangling,
this way and that

elbows, knees, ankles,
shoulders, scapulae, spines

our skulls normalized as visages,
not terrifying harbingers of death

and at this Bone Convention,
the talk is of unity and harmony

getting together for bubble baths
and backyard barbecues

and no one gives a thought to
whose femur is longer,

whose spine is straight or bent,
whose toe joints angle crookedly

for once we shed our skin and
subcutaneous fat,

once we have no reason to question
whose blood runs blue

or how our pants fit
or whose breasts are right-sized

well, then, we can no longer hide
the fact that we are, after all, much the same.

3. Body

Carrying the corpus around for a lifetime
is basic to life’s bargain:

Wherever you go, there you are.

You’d think we’d make peace with this
elaborate bag of water that we
drag around for decades at a stretch.

Not like we have a choice.

You can’t stick your head in one room
and leave your body in another.

Or bring your head and your pretty hair
to the party, while your body sits home
alone, rejected, unappreciated.

One package is all we get—
the thinking, feeling, existing,
all tendoned together.

Your body is your home,
your genetic proof of ID—
only one to a customer.

Hey, that’s pretty neat, right?

You’ve got yours.
I’ve got mine.
No two are alike.
I’m gonna claim the one I got, then.

The only body I’ll ever own,
no matter what I do to it—or
try to do to it.

I can bend, stretch, twist,
pull, tear, break, abuse,
pet, stroke, love, paint,
gorge, starve—

I can do all those things,
and more besides.

But at the end of each day,
when I turn out the light
I fall asleep in a bag of water
blanketed in fragrant skin
dotted with hairs and holes
and the odd mole—

and it’s all me, all the time
and nobody can take that away.

4. Mind

Like a riddle that begs to be solved,
or a trick box with a hidden trap door

the mind is unseeable, invisible
for all intents and purposes

—not the brain, with its dura and squish

no, the mind—

What really goes on in there?

I’m never sure.
But I have suspicions.

The mind is a trickster—
and tricksters aren’t especially nice.

The trickster whispers, the voices
filling my private cavities

telling me I’m too this, too that
not enough this, not enough that

lumpy / saggy / loud / clueless
old / useless / unhip

the slaughter of messages flows on…

in the wrong place / ill-equipped
not clever enough /

over-reaching / under-performing

oh, yes, there’s more, but
isn’t that enough?

Isn’t it always enough? Too much?

I want to be in control, for once,
oh, yes! I want to take charge and
tell the mind what to think and say—
no longer at its mercy,
its torturing beck and call

but how?

the trickster mind maintains an iron grip

and so I’ll seek out a tiny crack
of unconquered consciousness

where I imagine myself the author
of all the messages

where a new voice emerges to say:

you are more than enough
the bees’ knees
the queen of hearts
the be-all, end-all
hot stuff
yeah, you.

V. Soul

Who are you
right this very second
and who will you be
an hour from now
five years
a decade
taking your last breath?

Who are you
when grief lays upon you
like a weight that cannot
be lifted?

When joy stops your breath?

When you catch a glimpse of
yourself in a windowpane or
in the eyes of someone close?

Who are you when you finally
come face-to-face with—

you?

With all your perceived flaws
and faults and misgivings
and regrets and not-enoughs?

That right there, right then,
is your soul,
speaking your truth—
to you—
and to everyone who really
ought to be listening.

If ever all the souls converge,
if that’s a thing,
then we’ll all know
what we have,

and what we have is
our own glorious imperfection

alongside everyone else’s
glorious imperfection

and together, and also alone,
we are

perfect.

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