Book Details

Muscle Memory

If the muscles remember
every wrap and release, how
they must mourn the loss of love,
and time spent loving.

What widow does not ache
for her husband's hips to embrace -
What former rider forgets
the pulse of trot beneath her -
What retired sailor doesn't yearn
for the sea's swell, its surge
of surf and tide ?

Does muscle memory also hold a place
for anticipation ? For fear ?
Or, is she like her sister, Cognition,
that once she changes her mind
can no longer remember
her original position ?

Like the amputee who still feels
the impulsion of his phantom legs,
this memory is far more honest
than intellect, more loyal
to our bodies, than our brain is
to our fickle minds.