April 17th, 2024

I WANT MY BODY TO ROT

Today, in my last Team Meeting at Community Health and Counseling Services Hospice (for those who do not know, I am moving back to Canada to be closer to my granddaughter), I read two poems by Gina Puorro.  I adore this passionate, irreverent poet and hope you might enjoy her work as well.  You can visit her website for more if you like what you read.  Below, in her piece called I WANT MY BODY TO ROT, she shares a sentiment many of us have felt - - or perhaps have not yet dared to feel, and yet might welcome the opportunity to embrace the fall-of-form that most of us will encounter before the end of our lives. 

Here you go:

I WANT MY BODY TO ROT
~ Gina Puorro

I want my body to rot.
Loose skin and sagging breasts
lips thinned by the years of laughter
every line untucked and carved deep.
I want to be so wrinkled and withered
that the AI can’t even identify a face
to smooth and plump
and your $86 serum drowns itself
in my crow’s feet.
My divine feminine doesn’t need
jade eggs or goddess codes
she doesn’t need to up-level
her mind, body or orgasms
by finally investing
in your five figure quantum transmissions
or finding a man to surrender to.
She’s an old hag
Sheela-na-gig
her vulva sagging to her knees
Baba Yaga
lighting your way
with a burning skull.
She’s the dirt between your toes
the thunder clapping on a July afternoon
the ocean breaking on your thighs.
She’s singing 90s R&B
with the volume all the way up
while going 90 on the highway.
I want my belly soft and supple
full from an appetite satiated
by giant bowls of pasta
Sunday morning lovin’
long naps in the afternoon
choosing a slow burn
over hustle
every time.
I want my success measured
in joy and rest and pleasure
in how well I protect my peace
and how much I savored
the small moments.
I am the wildflowers and weeds
fucking up the clean edges
of your manicured lawn.
I am a raging maiden
the mother who birthed all of creation
a crone witch cackling at the audacity
of being a dangerous old woman
and loving it.
I am Lilith crashing your dinner party
with an apple pie
after you invited Eve
to wash your dishes.
When I die
I want my body to rot.
Let me be good meat
for the vultures
until I am nothing but
bone and memory
and grind me down
into an ancestor of the land.
I want to melt back into the dirt
that gets stuck under your nails
and muddies your feet
good soil for the next harvest.
I want mycelium sprouting from my decay
feeding the oaks and ash
and psychedelic epiphanies.
I want to dissolve
back down
into everything
and nothing
all at once.

VISIT GINA PUORRO'S WEBSITE HERE :
www.ginapuorro.com