The Third Body

The Third Body

The golden child across the aisle is spirit and flesh in one, 360 degrees of innocence drawing a brilliant beam between us, even as the turbulence forces a separate stream of silent prayers down the rows looking for parachutes, our locked eyes magnifying the joy that came before and stays after the state of being we came in with. Later, looking back from the mirror, flesh and bone no longer sing as that madrigal choir all its parts mystically harmonized, one sound praising the many. Wattles appear where a glistening throat reflected buttercups, skin drapes off upper arms like curtain rods where cantilevered cranes effortlessly swung rackets and lifted hands in praise. Hard won folds and feet of crows extend the lines of eyes and mouth, adding sidelights of experience to the trafficked orifices. Where one body was, three now cohabit, one mottled and resigned to decay, one flighty and given to vanishing, and a third body resting in its radiance, gazing through.