Response to Pablo Neruda’s ‘The Potter’

My body is not whole. You’re
mistaken because each piece is buried separately.
As your hands run up, they touch silence,
they touch fur, and a yearning for clarity.
My body is destined for a storm, a hell for doves
yet, quiet still.
My body is seeking, not you, me.
Made of clay so my body is the earth
you tread, spit on, curse, build with, avoid.
Your hollow echoes, mine dances to the river
song. Intertwining emptiness doesn’t mean
completion.
My body is incomplete, like a grain of sand
broken away from a rock;
my body is a rock, or not.

LARDO