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Body and Soul

By Sharon Bryan b. 1943 Sharon Bryan

They grow up together

but they aren't even fraternal

twins, they quarrel a lot

about where to go and what

to do, the body complains

about having to carry

the soul everywhere as if

it were some helpless cripple,

and the soul snipes that it can go

places the body never dreamed of,

then they quarrel over which one of them

does the dreaming, but the truth is,

they can't live without each other and

they both know it, anima, animosity,

the diaphragm pumps like a bellows

and the soul pulls out all the stops—

sings at the top of its lungs, laughs

at its little jokes, it would like

to think it has the upper hand

and can leave whenever it wants—

but only as long as it knows

the door will be unlocked

when it sneaks back home before

the sun comes up, and when the body

says where have you been, the soul

says, with a smirk, I was at the end

of my tether, and it was, like a diver

on the ocean floor or an astronaut

admiring the view from outside

the mother ship, and like them

it would be lost without its air

supply and protective clothing,

the body knows that and begins

to hum, I get along without you

very well, and the soul says, Listen

to that, you can't sing worth a lick

without me, they'll go on bickering

like this until death do them part—

and then, even if the soul seems to float

above the body for a moment,

like a flame above a candle, pinch

the wick and it disappears.

Source: Poetry (July 2002).

Biography

Born in Salt Lake City, Utah, Sharon Bryan earned a BA in philosophy from the University of Utah, an MA in anthropology from Cornell University, and an MFA from the University of Iowa. She is the author of the poetry collections Salt Air (1983), Objects of Affection (1987), Flying Blind (1996), and Sharp Stars (2009), which won the Isabella Stewart Gardner Poetry Award.

Bryan’s work as an editor includes Where We Stand: Women . . .

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