The body corporate—a poem

Once your home was wet and squeezy
your only duty was to grow
until she said it’s over, out you go.

A trusty home is always ours
this tender leather pouch
of senses, cells and energies.

This is my body, it’s starting to leak
it’s past its peak
the pipes are clogging

the windows are fogging
its value is dropping
it’s far from fully earthquake-proof.

Some day this body’s gonna be
uninhabitable. So
the Human Body Corporate Committee

(my children and me and my GP)
will have to agree
on the long term maintenance

and disposal of this body singular
the one I rent for life, for free
the one that houses me.

Rachel McAlpine

For every change in my dear old body there is an equivalent in the apartment that has been my home for 36 years. In both, the cost of maintenance mounts every year—and both respond to a communal effort. For my body, my executors, for the apartment block, the Body Corporate.