What the Body Owes

Hali Sofala-Jones

How can the body fail you

when it was always meant to die?

From the first sign of life,

already death

knitted into the promise

of bone.

You regard the body as a partner

only needing water, whole food,

and a walk each night

in the neighborhood you call home.

But what allegiance does a kidney owe you?

Or a clump of cells gone rogue? You trust a thing

that betrays even itself—

the indiscriminate march of red-blooded soldiers

sent to devour its kin.

What fails us, darling, is not the body but the soul.

The wild flutter after the diagnosis, the wisp

of eternity beating its wings against a cage set ablaze:

the proverbial frog in the pot, oblivious until its blood fires

like lightning in its perfectly dilated veins.

HALI SOFALA-JONES is a Samoan poet and author of AFAKASI | HALF-CASTE. Her work appears or is forthcoming from The Academy of American Poets, The Rumpus, Redivider and elsewhere. She loves watching her daughter play softball while eating popcorn. Find her on Instagram@sofalajones.