Poetry

The Poet's Body

(When the Polish poet and Nobel Prize winner

Czeslaw Milosz died in 2004, his body was kept

in a freezer while people debated where to bury him.)

The poet's body is kept on ice

like a giant cockle,

motionless, static, huge in its seriousness,

a body that demands a Christian burial,

a sorrowful goodbye, and all the other petty rites

that signify the completeness of journey.

In his big hands a pen was but a needle.

Today

he is a paper-mache statue, made of squashed poetry books,

displayed on the market square at noon,

big enough to feed everyone with a lump of words.

Maria Kardel