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The Author to His Body on Their Fifteenth Birthday, 29 ii 80

By Howard Nemerov 1920–1991 Howard Nemerov

“There’s never a dull moment in the human body.”
—The Insight Lady

Dear old equivocal and closest friend,

Grand Vizier to a weak bewildered king,

Now we approach The Ecclesiastean Age

Where the heart is like to go off inside your chest

Like a party favor, or the brain blow a fuse

And the comic-book light-bulb of Idea black out

Forever, the idiot balloon of speech

Go blank, and we shall know, if it be knowing,

The world as it was before language once again;

Mighty Fortress, maybe already mined

And readying to blow up grievances

About the lifetime of your servitude,

The body of this death one talkative saint

Wanted to be delivered of (not yet!),

Aggressively asserting your ancient right

To our humiliation by the bowel

Or the rough justice of the elderly lecher’s

Retiring from this incontinence to that;

Dark horse, it’s you we’ve put the money on

Regardless, the parody and satire and

The nevertheless forgiveness of the soul

Or mind, self, spirit, will or whatever else

The ever-unknowable unknown is calling itself

This time around—shall we renew our vows?

How should we know by now how we might do

Divorced? Homely animal, in sickness and health,

For the duration; buddy, you know the drill.

Source: Sentences (The University of Chicago Press, 1980)

Biography

Howard Nemerov was a highly acclaimed poet often cited for the range of his capabilities and subject matter, "from the profound to the poignant to the comic," James Billington remarked in his frequently quoted announcement of Nemerov's appointment to the post of United States poet laureate. A distinguished professor at Washington University in St. Louis from 1969 to 1990, Nemerov wrote poetry and fiction that managed to engage . . .

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