Marguerite Guzman Bouvard is the author of 6 books of poetry and several books in the fields of human rights, grief and illness.  She is a Resident Scholar at the Women's Studies Research Center at Brandeis University.

The Faith of the Body

if you cannot fly  sometimes   it is enough

to sway  like the rippling

silk   of the ocean   swishing

and turning  in its vastness

yesterday  the wind tore it

to shreds  gulls

teetered and shrieked  their shadows

hurtling  over the  sand yesterday

you didn't know  if it would ever

end  the wind pulling you  by the roots

your body twisting  in its jaws

now you rise up  within yourself

as if testing  the frame   of a frail

house  at this late hour   you begin

again  as you have  always done

it is enough  to watch

the ocean  riding its shoals

soothed  by invisible hands

today   could be  a holy word

if you are able to utter it

sometimes  it is a way  of flying

Landing

The door is flung wide, the sun

is a warm hand bathing my bones

in fire and air.  I am delivered into morning

with the stark vocabulary

of night:  the lamp's red eye

on the sheets, the body fisted 

around its pain, hours brooding

like stones.  I've been cast up like a man

returned from battle, his nostrils filled

with the stench of blood and fear,

his ears throbbing with the crackle

of branches and gunfire.

Still stalked by the enemy, I blink

through the sun drenched door

at the steel steps, the concrete

expanse of the landing field.