Andy Lopez

In the holding room for my disembodiment surgery

after Jamie Cabatit

I discover a fondness for my toes. Their quiet, utter perfection.
Before today, I only wanted: to be good / to eat something other
than dirt / to offer my mouth and have the option to swallow.

The catalogue promised: painless de-boning in seconds! Now I’m here,
minutes before machine blenders this body into primordial dust,
divinely inspired and lighter than God’s first miraculous sneeze.

Now no longer weighed down by: a bad body /
bog body / borg body / wretched body / wrong body / wrong sex
with other wrong bodies I’ve no excuse not to be happy.

It’s all I’ve ever wanted. To transform—apparatus into
delirious daydream. What’s the opposite of utility? That’s where I want to be.
Nothing sexier than un-becoming, than material unavailability

And all the girls from the same gutter agree. Where was I? Right.
Toes. Fucking superb, these silly things. What will they be, if not attached to me?
Where will they go? Tossed in the bin, like the sad unwanted bits of a sandwich?

I know; too late to walk away now. Get it? Walk? Fine: I’ll miss terrestriality.
If my toes and I had another day, I’d like to: try mauve / maybe foot sex / dip all ten nubs
in a vat of cheese / or some nice, cold, wormy earth / apologize Nothing crazy.

And maybe then I can let go. Slip free. Become something
of which words would fail: a some-person /
a God-sneezed-and-it-was-poetry.