There are countless ways,
though the body is a machine
for living, and can do this without
many of its component parts
due to damage such as an arm,
both legs – certain parts of the brain
even, when broken, will allow
the body to keep doing it –
the living – though it is not yet known
in which part, if only one, that pain lives
or if, indeed, it is part of the whole,
everywhere, at the molecular level –
and, in which case, how much?
How much should be broken?
‘Microscopic’ is from the sequence, ‘Four Essays on the Body’.