EXPLORER
By Jared Pearce
Columbus left Italy, left the shore.
Boy draws a length of butcher paper,
traces his ten year self on its side, then cuts
and colors his organs: red and blue
for the heart and its pipes, kidneys
violet, deep blue testes, a pink mind.
He figures and pastes where they rest.
While his foot stayed put, Galileo went to heaven.
When his mother suggests the pancreas
rise or the colon level out, he disagrees,
trusting his map and the truth
of his knowing, feeling
the small shift when he sits or lies,
how contractions and reflections
show what is where and what is gone,
what works and what’s wrong.
Blake’s body is the perceived portion of spirit.
Tomorrow, he says, the puffed lung,
the deep liver—to be featured and hung
near his heart, filling that cavity
with courage to speak right
despite the charts in his science book,
the average grade, being ignored.
Gently, Gandhi says, Shake.
_____________________________________________________
Jared Pearce lives in beautiful Iowa, USA — 2nd PLACE WINNER in ZO Magazine’s Decennalia Poetry Expo.