A poem for the body

Still Do I Keep My Look, My Identity
BY GWENDOLYN BROOKS

Each body has its art, its precious prescribed
Pose, that even in passion’s droll contortions, waltzes,
Or push of pain – or when a grief has stabbed
Or hatred hacked – is its and nothing else’s.
Each body has its pose. No other stock
That is irrevocable, perpetual,
And its to keep. In castle or in
With rags or robes. Through good, nothing, or ill.
And even in death a body, like no other
On any hill or plain or crawling cot
Or gentle for the lily-less hasty pall
(Having twisted, gagged, and then sweet-ceased to bother),
Shows the old personal art, the look. Shows what
It showed at baseball. What it showed in school.

Published in Poetry: A Magazine of Verse, November 1944, pp 76-77