For I have taken the breast of the waving and the
thigh of the elevation from the children of Israel
Leviticus 7:34
It makes me wonder what unique purposes
the other parts of the body may have…
The kneecap of judgment
The elbow of the solemn oath
The uvula of solitude
The fingernails of it’s really time
to cut the fingernails
The capillary of getting the mail
The left nostril that goes to the Lord
The spleen of Schenectady
The gizzard of, wait-a-minute
human beings don’t have gizzards
The eyeball of silent movies
The earlobe of am I being too loud
The epidermis of fluffy pillows
The tongue of all the words
that spill out of your mouth
The eyelash of attraction
The nipple of delight
The tingling of the you know what
The spleen of what is this pain
in the side of my body
The tooth of has the mail come
The eyebrow of science fiction
The bicep of city planning
The leg of please don’t eat my leg
The palm of the hand that soothes
the cheek of your lover
The lip of the bee sting
The heel of the long road ahead
The navel of the peace among men
The divine plan of it all as the
holy smoke rises up to the sky
Los Angeles poet Rick Lupert created the Poetry Super Highway (an online publication and resource for poets), and hosted the Cobalt Cafe weekly poetry reading for almost 21 years. He’s authored 25 collections of poetry, including “God Wrestler: A Poem for Every Torah Portion“, “I’m a Jew, Are You” (Jewish themed poems) and “Feeding Holy Cats” (Poetry written while a staff member on the first Birthright Israel trip), and most recently “The Tokyo-Van Nuys Express” (Poems written in Japan – Ain’t Got No Press, August 2020) and edited the anthologies “Ekphrastia Gone Wild”, “A Poet’s Haggadah”, and “The Night Goes on All Night.” He writes the daily web comic “Cat and Banana” with fellow Los Angeles poet Brendan Constantine. He’s widely published and reads his poetry wherever they let him.
