Anthropology of the Body [1.2]

Jennifer S. Cheng
(The Normal School Online, June 17, 2015)

Our body is a metaphor for something
unknown. I hold a cup of ice in my hands, winter intertwining fingers;

suddenly you are a lover I must set
aside, a body too disparate from my own.

A woman holds sugar on the tip of her tongue, and her child
calls her sweet. We are reckless

with our knowledge. I step into the shower, pour cold water
all over my limbs. I pinch my skin to emulate
a shiver. If Freud was right, and the mind

can absorb the structures of the body, then I might take your hand
to these scabs and scars, say boundaries, walls,

say if you could divide into a wrinkle.