From Inside My Body

By A.T. Halaby

Something like. The night

Was still happening and.

The morning wasn’t ready. Like

Language’s suggestion (it’s struggling, I

Mean, really, it’s in trouble)

Is in its deal with my mind.

To tell me what I want to hear.

Thoughts don’t tire out, they

Don’t have bodies. What I must

Know. What I already—

What all this looks like inside here.

My body is clay

And warmth is a sculptor’s hands

After other hands and

Hearts after one another.

The sun is torture.

And this morning—like most beginnings—

With my fingers bent around every cup

Every hot stovetop every

Window and its glass glaring

My arms are giving away their need. Like

They are right now. Like

There isn’t a whole lot I’m missing

Out on if, in my ability to                   reach

What I want to know, what I must act on,

What I am only thinking about

Won’t do me good to—

I thought, if I climbed out

The window and bent my neck and chest

Over the gutters, changing my heart’s flow,

My body, its heat pouring from the

Mouth of a watering can. It’s

My heart moving in all directions.