Saint of Body and Bone, Evelyn Bauer

carapace describes hard surfaces though some are soft flesh is impermanent

carapace too all rot eventually bone holds steady bone like the foundations of

buildings or the hardwood of trees bone rots too decay is extant there is little

escape but still it is important to try and make the best of what we have it is

still best to caress this skin it is still best to love this body from flesh to bone

to brain and muscle and fat it is still important to care even in its transience

somewhere there is a story about a people who lived in the corpse of a giant

and fed off its flesh until the ribs were mountains and that is the world and

someday that will happen again and create new worlds fractally infinite

whose to say if flesh ends when it rots or if the idea of flesh lives on in

beetles and worms and maybe that is enough to feel infinite maybe the

body lives on in photographs and paintings maybe the bone lives on in

words or the spines of books and maybe it doesn’t and who gets to decide

who claims immortality the core of the bone is soft and ever-producing but

it fails first give thanks to the shell or the sheath give thanks to impermanence

and memory give thanks to softness give thanks to the saint of body and bone

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Evelyn Bauer is a writer, bookseller, and wine punk living on stolen land in so called 'New England.' She is often found reviewing books, petting cats, and listening to experimental music. She would love to give you a natural wine recommendation and discuss queer liberatory literature with you! You can find some of her tabletop roleplaying games at https://eeveeholdsredbull.itch.io/ and find her on twitter at @neo_cubist