And my body is a collection of rivers
that think they are bones. I love my blood
the way I love pink cherry soda, the way
I would nibble on my own earlobes
and call it good breeding. According
to Eduardo Galeano, the church says
the body is a sin; science says it’s
a machine, and advertising has tried
to make it into a business, but the body
says, I am a fiesta. That’s why both
my elbows think they are wishbones
and all my knuckles have decided
to be opals, increasingly iridescent
with every change of angle. That’s why
every glass of pinot grigio I drink
is a toast to the diamonds in your and my
and Maya Angelou’s thighs. Big, small,
and all the in-betweens are perfect
to me. Even when what I see in the mirror
makes me want to cry, I remember the glory
of the aqueducts that would deliver
those waters from the vast countryside
of my insecurity out to the glamourous
cities of my cheeks, and suddenly my body
is an event to be marked by festivities,
the best year yet of an award-winning
vineyard, a half-century-long firework
display, a pilgrimage, a parade.
Melissa Studdard is the author of two poetry collections, I Ate the Cosmos for Breakfast and Dear Selection Committee, and the chapbook Like a Bird with a Thousand Wings.Her work has been featured by PBS, NPR, The New York Times, The Guardian, and the Academy of American Poets’ Poem-a-Day series, and has also appeared in periodicals such as POETRY, Kenyon Review, Psychology Today, New Ohio Review, Harvard Review, Missouri Review, SWWIM Daily, and New England Review.Her Awards include The Penn ReviewPoetry Prize, the Tom Howard Prize from Winning Writers, the Lucille Medwick Memorial Award from the Poetry Society of America, and more.
Welcome to SWWIM Every Day’s National Poetry Month project: Sing the Body: A Collection of Poems Praising Our Selves!
With support from Florida International University’s Wolfsonian Public Humanities Lab (WPHL) and Florida International University’s Center for Women and Gender Studies, we are publishing poems that celebrate body positivity and our selves.
In addition to publishing the poems as poems of the day, 10 select Sing the Body poems will be displayed on FIU’s main campus near mirrors and places where women encounter themselves. These poems will live in a dedicated portfolio on our website.
Thank you, as always, for reading and supporting SWWIM Every Day! Happy National Poetry Month!
