And, Lo, You’re Here

You weren’t consulted on the body
You’re in. You weren’t around when it was
Being built out of the usual.

Moreover, you’re constructed partly,
Maybe mostly, out of that body
For which you were never consulted,

And out of that body’s history
Of converting intake and insults
To the amalgamations of scars,

Microflora, peculiar wiring,
And one-off, baroque immune systems,
That decide so much of what you do.

The rest of you floated in on air,
On waves, on spores that ride the senses,
And, most of all, on human language,

To settle in that body’s cortex,
Reassembling as the ghost that’s you,
Hybrid, small colony of culture

In some relationship with its host,
Maybe mutualistic, maybe
Commensal, maybe parasitic.

If you believe none of this is true,
That’s fine. Whatever you do believe
Discovered its home in making you.