What the Body Wants
from What the Body Wants, pages 10-11
Berkeley, 1999
Second printing, 2001
Third printing, 2003
The body wants to dance.
It wants to get up off
the floor and dance.
It wants to get up out of
the chair, and dance;
to get from behind the desk
and dance;
to get out with people
and dance.
The body wants to move.
the body wants to move
and touch
and move together
with other bodies.
It wants to smell other bodies
and taste other bodies.
It wants to be up to it’s neck
in body.
The body wants to be a body.
The body is tired of waiting
and resting beneath the mind.
The body falls asleep thinking.
It can’t stand the wait
between action and action.
It doesn’t want to write
or call somebody, talk or
take a nap.
It wants to move out
into the world. It wants
to touch the world of bread
and coffee, soft cloth and rough cloth
pavement, tree bark
hear car sounds and water sounds.
It wants to tread on things
and to feel the weight of things.
It wants to squeeze somebody
and be squeezed by somebody.
It wants warmth, sunshine
breezes and wet sand
between its toes.
It wants to jump in water
and float.
The body wants to jump off
the Golden Gate Bridge.
It wants to fly.
It wants to feel with every cell
the pull of gravity
and the centrifugal force
of turning.
It wants its energy
and it wants peace and tranquillity.
The body wants to know
that it is not alone.
It wants to be big sometimes
and small sometimes.
It wants to fit into small safe places
and fill up rooms with shouting.
The body wants to vibrate
to its own voice
and to feel harmony with other voices
and dissonance.
It wants to dance slow and dance fast
to flow, to thrust, to bend, to be still.
It wants to make beautiful lines
and be seen.
It wants to be fat and skinny
to burst out of its seams.
The body wants everything.
It does not want to be bounded
but loves to rub, push and bounce off
surfaces.