BODY IS A LUMP OF MEAT

Forsooth!

To be fixed by tradesmen - plumbers and electricians or

old women, barbers, witches;

some dodgy mechanism or tool

to be kept moving on its own;

severed from the clever head,

evading sinful, feely flesh

 - so we were told, inducted.

It wasn’t seen as good or right to spend time on or talk about

at table

let alone gape into mirrors.

Technical, let alone medical terms were vulgar jargon.

Duty (survival) was the business -

keeping things rolling,

maintaining the status quo,

not making a fuss or showing off.

Such was the start-up handicap of our heritage:

get on with it;

Avoid hell or scandal at all

costs,

pulling strings, knowing whose who hardly works

for Everyman; 

calumny, complicity the lesser evils.