The body as home, but only if it is understood that bodies can be stolen, fed lies and poison, torn away from us. They rise up around me-bodies stolen by hunger, war, breast cancer, AIDS, rape; the daily grind of factory, sweatshop, cannery, sawmill; the lynching rope; the freezing streets; the nursing home and prison… Some bodies are taken for good; other bodies live on, numb, abandoned, full of self-hate. Both have been stolen… Stereotypes and lies lodge in our bodies as surely as bullets. They live and fester there, stealing the body.
The body as home, but only if it is understood that the stolen body can be reclaimed. The bodies irrevocably taken from us; we can memorialize them in quilts, granite walls, candlelight vigils; remember and mourn them; use their deaths to strengthen our will. And as for the lies and false images, we need to name them, transform them, create something entirely new in their place, something that comes close and finally true to the bone, entering our bodies as liberation, joy, fury, hope, a will to refuge the world. The body as home.