I could have been an ant,

an eagle, a cockroach, a cactus,

a lantern fish, a microbe.

 

Yet, here I am, in this skin.

 

I could have been sturdy, slight,

short, tall, violet, scarlet.

 

Yet, here I am, in this skin.

 

Was it God?

A reincarnation promotion or demotion?

Some weird, spiritual evolution?

An organic machine?

I don’t know.

 

But here I am, as I am,

what you see, in this skin.

 

And here we all are,

miraculously here,

 

descended from a single

source in Africa, they say,

 

now scattered in diverse,

crazy clusters

on the shallow crust

of our beautiful crazy planet

breathing a thin band of air.

 

A world that could end

any time . . . for us, anyway . . .

if we stuff up.

 

Yet here we are,

still, somehow, miraculously here

in all our skins.