Aesop Revisited

We know how the body thrives on jostling,
    jogging up escalators,
answering two phones at once, interrupting
    the stockbroker with a card trick,
partying in lofts, making love in fast taxis.

The soul, we know, binges on vistas,
    finds sequoias in bonsai,
feels lucky slipping under waterfalls
    or floating on a salt lake,
humming an endless plainsong on the prairie.

        How is it, then,
    that the body finds itself
sneezing in meadows, poison ivy
inflaming its privates, while the soul
    gags on exhaust, waits for hours
        on a subway
        platform, only
    to see the garbage train clank through?
Rodent of the body, mouse of the soul, what
cousins once removed, what fitful misfits!

Copyright © 2003 John Drury All rights reserved
from Burning the Aspern Papers
Miami University Press
Reprinted by Verse Daily® with permission