as the body is one, and hath many members

As time goes by, my verse seems to become more supple, more flexible, which makes it the mirror image of my physical body. Let us hope that the body of my verse and the body of my body demonstrate that "as the body is one, and hath many members and all the members of that one body, being many, are one body."

from Days of Our Lives

9
That year I saw 3, maybe 4 great men.
I don't recall what pearls they had to drop,
what they looked like, the timbre of their voices
or suits. I talked once, maybe for 3 minutes,
to a lapis-eyed blonde who didn't know my name.
I knew hers, remember every word,
and have concocted several dozen lives
of swift conclusion. All end up inside
her. At 2 a.m. at the Rockybilt counter,
hard and bright as a Hopper, I could drink
coffee, mop up secret sauce, and wonder
how anyone had ever finished James,
if Strether would find Bohemia in Paris,
whether he'd "live" and why anybody cared.