A body horror poem

Selected poems

No Body’s Perfect

his tennis elbow
was his Achilles heel

and his Achilles heel
was on his athlete’s foot

and his athlete’s foot
made him down in the mouth

and though the down in his mouth
he took on the chin,

it became less a shot in the arm
than a chip on his shoulder –

so that when the doctor
finished examining him

and told him what was wrong,
he was all ears