Yard Work

I spent the day shoveling black dirt, sun burning my nose, tasting salt on my lips, smelling my warmed skin, thinking about sex. Thinking about bodies and the sacredness of our physicality. About the way we move within our skin, about the times, the moments that pull our souls down into our bodies, up against the backs of our eyes, and push out at our fingertips. I thought about my scrawny arms, arthritic wrists, blistered palms and how gloriously they were all working together to dig and lift and move. I thought about that moment in sex, in kind, generous sex, when you feel so awake and blissful and aware of the glory of your imperfect bodies and the goodness within them that it makes you cry. Goodness, like black dirt. Goodness, like white sunlight. Goodness, like sweating skin.