Mind | Body
Greg Djanikian

How do they survive, riven
as they are, the one undoing
the other's desire?

Tell the body to outrun
the mind, and the mind smirks,
whispering too loudly
this way this way,
blocking all the exits.

And the body, luxurious
sensualist by pool side or in bed,
doesn't it hear the mind's
impatient machinery ticking
it's time it's time?

And only in our mind's eye,
as we're fond of saying,
someone else's body leaping nimbly
in jet's of thought, or revealing
to us Act V, scene iii
in one gestural flourish,
body and mind beautifully
synchronous.

Oh, the mind is eely, slipping
out of its puzzle boxes,
loving its own wit.

And the earnest body: speak of it
with the least irony, and already
you've begun to unnerve it.

Better to let them have their way,
forgetting about them both
until they meet again sometime
as if for the first time
in library or steam room
ready to shake hello

or lead you to whatever door there is
and always the two sets of stairs.

First published in Poetry, April 2000, Volume 176, Number 1
Used by permission of the poet and Poetry.