Elizabeth Robinson

On Recovery

So often the body unlatches its lid and stores away excess.

The fool said so.

Said the lost excess was the cause of illness.

Said recovery was an issue of storage.

Says, “I dedicate my storage to you.”

So ordained, the dedication

was offered as a form of sacred logic. By which

the fool means—causation means that

rarely did things happen for a reason.

Yet foolishness is

all that adorns, and recovery is a finding.

All the extra retrieved was

an adornment and a consecration worn to


this day as a stole upon the recuperated body.