Fair Game

I remember a moment
when I was 5
and peeing under a tree
and thinking about
life

and about bodies–
my body
emptying itself
under the body
of that tree,
the huge

house of it
as I looked up
through the muscular
branches which seemed
as thick around as grown
men,

and I remember
looking down and seeing
directly across from me
another body–
a tiny black
foraging
body–

I was still peeing
as I followed it
with my eyes
traversing the vast
mountain range of bark,

and carrying with it
a little something
to eat
on its back
or maybe
in its mouth.

I couldn’t
see its mouth but I knew–
I remember being 5 and knowing–
that it had a mouth,
that it had to have a mouth
because everything has a mouth
because the body is fair
game for other bodies
with mouths,

and I remember thinking
this included
my body,
and feeling
all of a sudden
very empty

but also very
wise. More wise
than hungry. I wasn’t
hungry at all at that
particular
remarkable
moment.

About Paul Hostovsky

Paul Hostovsky's poems appear and disappear simultaneously (Voila). His work has recently been sighted in places where they paid him for his trouble with his own trouble doubled, and other people's troubles thrown in, which never seem to him as great as his troubles, though he tries not to compare. He has no life, and spends it with his poems, trying to perfect their perfect disappearances, which is the working title of his new collection, which is looking for a publisher and for itself. To read more of his poems, visit his website by clicking the link above.

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