Neck Rolls
I relax my arms, enlace
my fingers at my crotch,
push my chin toward the sky
so each vertebra floats free
of the next. I am aware
of the inside of my spine.
Chin to my chest, I imagine
a string attached to the very top
of my head, lifting me
so each vertebra floats
as if in space. I remember: breathe
deeply, with my diaphragm. Live
in the belly, not the chest. There’s
more room there, a whole galaxy.
The stars and planets fire and breathe
in the darkness.
Imagine yourself in a gas chamber
at Auschwitz. The first cloud hits
you full in the face and you have one
gulp of air left. The chest is a
small, small cage.
I tilt my head to the side and yield
my jugular to the moon. The dark wolf
of Mars leaps with red eyes but will not bite.
The exposed neck is so powerful. Breathe,
breathe deeply, with the earth.
Imagine you are a chronic asthmatic
and the air everywhere is full of volcanic
ash. Your engine has topped. The chest
is a small, miserly cage.
I tilt my head the other way,
and howl till my lungs are completely
empty. Now my lungs are like the banks
of the universe. Space curves in
and out, relentlessly. Let my last
breath be the first for all living things.
Swing your head left, then right.
These are the neck rolls.
--Lowell Uda
Fish
My spine is arched, my chin
tilted back as far as it will go.
My weight is on my buttocks
and the top of my head. I am
in the configuration called
the fish.
This is what it’s like
to look up out of water. It’s
another world on the other side
of the surface, a world of light
and commotion. It is upside down
I must swim for another million
years. What pain it must be
to penetrate that surface, to lie
on that thin film drying
my wings, or leaving my tail
behind, to skitter on the wet
stones.
I have been all these years
reaching for my own birth,
for that rushing moment, like water
in a narrow gorge and I am the water
and I am the gorge, and I am the thing
being born and I am the thing
giving birth.
Oh what a long and sorrowful journey,
the going out and coming home. Oh
what a short, sweet time. My body
bends to the song of the beginning
till it is no more, which is death,
which is life, which is a long howl
of joy.
--Lowell Uda
Rice
