A few years after the execution,when it had completed its time as a corpseand had transformed into moisture and rot,the matter that had once composed the bodyof Anicius Malius Severinus Boethiuswas shoveled into a wheelbarrowand moved to the crypt of a church. At leastthis was true of the skeleton, whileprobably the eyesthe soldiers squeezed from the headhad already deteriorated — along with the brainthat leaked out when they bludgeoned the body to death.Take unity away from a thing and existence tooceases, that brainhad once thought. And in the momentit transmitted this thought to the muscles in the hand,it must have believed it would go on living, just asall of us believe we will go on livingwhen we say I will die but really meanhere I am, thinking. And silently,it commanded its hand to transcribe those wordswhile the soldiers sat outside its cell,playing cards and throwingknuckles of animal bone down the long Roman table.
Boethius’ Body
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“Boethius’ Body” from THE TWENTY-FIRST CENTURY: by Jacob Eigen.
Published by American Poetry Review on September 17, 2024.
Copyright © 2024 by Jacob Eigen.
All rights reserved.
Reproduced by Poetry Daily with permission.
Jacob Eigen is the author of The Twenty-First Century, selected by Roger Reeves for the 2024 American Poetry Review/Honickman First Book Prize. He studied literature and philosophy at Deep Springs College and Yale University and fiction writing at Hunter College. Originally from Brooklyn, he currently lives with his wife in Cambridge, Massachusetts.
Lovers whisper to each other at summer camp. The vizier of an ancient kingdom recalls the pleasures of his youth. A cockroach in the distant future evolves to write poetry of his own. Chosen by Roger Reeves as the winner of the 2024 APR/Honickman First Book Prize, The Twenty-First Century guides us through a breadth of environments and worlds — from far off times and places to the poet in the present, leaving Costco, wandering through the mazy streets of Queens. Drawing from both fictional and autobiographical material, these poems treat a range of subjects: the joys and terrors of childhood, music, art, desire, love. Some are narrative prose poems verging on parable, others lyric meditations or lyric sequences. The language throughout is simple and plainspoken, but the mystery is vast. It is the mystery of time — the fact that we are here and then gone. How can this be, these poems ask again and again, in a chorus of voices and an array of forms, until the question itself becomes a kind of song.
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