It is the Soul

that weighs the body down—
like the wine in grapes,
fumes that topple you
to earth—

like the wet in a new clay pot,
the boom of the kiln translating
what's fleshy and yielding—

Without ballast the body

floats, light as the dust it's made of,
motes and electrons sparsely
strewn—

dancers in a hall too big
for the dance, beguiled with northern
lights, with shimmer,
with amnesia,

aching to be found—a hut
to shelter a vagabond—to cluster
ardor in the heart—

to be an I—

Copyright © 2004 Hannah Stein All rights reserved
from American Poetry Journal
Reprinted by Verse Daily® with permission