darling: poems by colleen cosette goodman

i am the jar, my body is the brine

What shall become of this worn-out body?
How will it sink into the ground, how will it strike a match and light the candle?
It, going down the drain like shavings of vegetables,
Freshly shorn and soft to the touch.
This body, this mind, this blood;
It is all too much!
I sit near the ocean and wonder;
I sit near the ocean and decide:
There shall be the ocean
And there shall always be the sludge of the body:
The dragging across sand, the extension into the night,
The stretch of limbs in the morning.
It is this I have decided, and this it shall be.