Yoga with Kassandra
Some thoughts weigh enough to throw a body
off balance e.g. fearing life touched by death,
the spit of life which carries death, the grease of life,
the talk of it. Kassandra’s face on my screen
is hardly real, she has the stretch of gum while
I am a mesh of nerves and unhappy glands.
A small animal eats the muscle of my stomach
and thigh. I think of the whistles of pain
I sometimes get in my chest, how a foot
can just cramp up; the body is nerves on nerves.
My mother tenses to the left of me.
Her back muscles strain against a film
of skin, will perhaps break through.
If I am fibre, she is tenderloin, tissue
red and elastic, colour of life, not like
yellow, not like the mushrooming tongues
and lungs on cigarette packets, telling me
matter out of place makes the body out of place.
Kassandra says feel the stretch, try sitting
all the way in it. She softens her spine
and settles into herself, sweet as a nut.
She wants me rooted to the earth, then catching
a gust, cutting air. Remember to breathe, pelvis raised
like a prayer, or legs open, almost singing.
Nina Reljić (L3)