Water Poppies Open as the Mouth

By J. Michael Martinez

The Body as Nature, History

All motivations intermingle as the core of history, the internal becomes external... all as parts of the body.
—maurice merleau-ponty

i.               the positing of space, corporeal history


medium of my body

bent to narrow rivers,


         touching of the touch
                           commits


totem to shape:

           jasmine buds,

    water poppies            open as the mouth.


                       Propolis and juniper oil

             resinous   viscera
             embowered in trees,

              life wholly aware of itself
              unbound and unsealed.


ii. into the language of seeing


eyes gather seed—

                  perception as hive
                  a bud of gold, a gold of blood

                  apportioned in time

four wings fastened      by a row of resolutions

                  reeved through revelation,


                  place-world awoken,
                  obscurity bonded to light.
Copyright Credit: J. Michael Martinez, "Water Poppies Open as the Mouth" from heredities. Copyright © 2010 by J. Michael Martinez.  Reprinted by permission of Louisiana State University Press.
Source: heredities (Louisiana State University Press, 2010)