Poem of the Week: Philip Metres

For the Fifty (Who Formed PEACE With Their Bodies)

In the green beginning,
.……in the morning mist,
………………they emerge from their chrysalis

of clothes: peel off purses & cells,
.………slacks & Gap sweats, turtle-
………………necks & tanks, Tommy’s & Salvation

Army, platforms & clogs,
.………abandoning bras and lingerie, labels
……………….& names, courtesies & shames,

the emperor’s rhetoric of defense,
.………laying it down, their child-
……………….stretched or still-taut flesh

giddy in sudden proximity,
.………onto the cold earth: bodies fetal or supine,
……………….as if come-hithering

or dead, wriggle on the grass to form
.………the shape of a word yet to come, almost
……………….embarrassing to name: a word

thicker, heavier than the rolled rags
.………of their bodies seen from a cockpit:
……………….they touch to make

the word they want to become:
.………it’s difficult to get the news
……………….from our bodies, yet people die each day

for lack of what is found there:
.………here: the fifty hold, & still
……………….to become a testament, a will,

embody something outside
.………themselves & themselves: the body,
……………….the dreaming disarmed body.


-Philip Metres

Used by permission.

Philip Metres is the author of numerous books, including To See the Earth (poetry, 2008), Come Together: Imagine Peace (anthology of peace poems, 2008), Behind the Lines: War Resistance Poetry on the American Homefront since 1941 (criticism, 2007). His poetry has appeared in Best American Poetry and Inclined to Speak: Contemporary Arab American Poetry. He teaches at John Carroll University in Cleveland, Ohio. Were it not for Ellis Island, his last name would be Abourjaili.

Metres appeared on the panels "The Peace Shelves: Essential Books and Poems for the 21st Century" and "Documentary Poetics" during Split This Rock Poetry Festival: Poems of Provocation & Witness 2010.

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