The Instinct of Cells

The Instinct of Cells


beauty softens each of us
like an egg soaking in vinegar,

but I have always been soft,
soft as baby fuzz,
a flabby soul
stuffed into my skin
like sausage meat inside a hog casing.

I have no idea what it’s like
to have to kill,
to jump out of an airplane,
to learn I have cancer.
I spray lavender-vanilla mist on my pillow
to help myself
sleep.

the hardest thing in my life
was when my dad died. they tattooed
little dots on his head
to help them aim their rays. his hair
started to fall out. luckily,
he didn’t have much to lose.

I correspond over the Internet
with a young woman
in England. she takes shape
as if from memory—
out of digitized snapshots
and sound bites
and emoticons
and words. her long hair once shimmered
under a fading
sun. she writes soft
poetry and reads it into her computer.
her breath whispers
in the microphone
like the sound of television snow.

I remember the look on my dad’s face
as he hung up the phone
and told me about his friend, Monte,
killed in a car crash
while driving home from the beach
to his wife and three young
children. I remember how,
in the midst of feeling
sorry for myself, I understood
that I had been blessed. in its way,
cancer is kind.

my wife is eight-and-a-half
months pregnant. I bend down
to tie her shoelaces in a crowded mall
while out Christmas shopping,
and our six-year-old son
seizes the opportunity to pounce. I stand
and shrug
him off
the way a sapling
shakes the soil from its back.

I wonder at the instinct of cells.

in the palms of my hands.
in the tips of my fingers.
in the soles of my feet.

like a murder of crows.
like a pack of wolves.
like a parliament of rooks.

I’ve grown too soft to try to make
sense of it. I no longer want
to understand. I want to just
know,
the way animals and trees
know, the way an infant knows.

I can feel it there,
lurking

in each tiny piece.