Dear Body,

In another life I was a distance runner. Year-round, from 7th grade until my senior year of college, for ten years, my feet beat pavement. I'm 35 now and my body deserves some love and flowers.

Dear Body,


Thank you
for the years
of foot falls 
in ripples
of foot falls in races 
with spiked hills 
and steep breaths.

Thank you, body
for that perfected ring
of smoke from lips
and the ease
and dragon steam
from new nostrils.

Thank you, body
for coming when I call
and bucking hard either way
and making lightning in the web
between my fingers.

Thank you for wading
in the storm waters
Thank you, body
for anything you do
deemed deft
or inspired or with grace.

Thank you, body
for this cage to rattle
for these charms to work
for this bark.

Thank you, body
for your servitude,
for your insubordination,
for your counsel,
for your hot feet finding fire.

Thank you, body
for the eyes that wander on water
and give me away as a gift.

Thank you, body
for a well flipped egg
and the invading itch
finally quelled
for pain
for aching need
for the skin on this life
kneeling, praying
when I dare not.

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Poet Note:

Hello reader,

I was ‘Once a Runner’ and was thinking about how wild that is to my current self. Like the doubt that has crept in, the amazement at the impossibility of once being able to run fifty miles a week. What have you forgotten how to do? What does your body remember how to do?

Be kind to yourself out there.

-Sean

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