Body Works

Did you know our bodies

   are works of words

   that can be read

You have soccer stained on your shins

   the man’s hands say Dad

   in primary-colored paint

   a wrist breastfed

   and with a magnifying glass

   you can read sugarless and milk

   on the little girl’s white teeth

   on toes ballerina and a dream

If we could dig under the skin

   his intestines would spell fear

   and on a woman’s hear five

   stands in black ink for the number

   of times it’s been broken

Elsewhere a little boy had one when

   she refused his Valentine in second grade