The body wants to heal, carries its house of bones
and skin to the next Walk light.
Don’t Walk. The body always having to obey and wanting
like a good dog with a good dog’s soft ears
and sad eyes,

but the mind, no, the mind is fanged

and sleek. Feline, the mind slinks from sunlight
into night’s blurred elixirs—
Oh, to quench what the mind craves
as it prowls the body’s rooms

down to the femurs and spleen, liver

and gut, even the heart I heard was the size of a fist
and feared it would punch the wall.
In the body’s rooms, every good organ
is home to the soul
you could see, if you could see
inside your glass cases,
exhibitions at a museum
in a medieval keep. When I hear

“a keeper of everything,” I panic at what

must be misplaced
in this castle I’ve hoarded stone by stone,
its wind-riddled fortifications, its moat, the drawbridge
and portcullis rusty,

and how might they sing if I opened my body now,

what might I find
if I bring my eyes, my tyrant mind,
the fist in my chest,
and venture further? Across the street, I see
a dog and think of tenderness.