Tag: spring

skinless

and like all the other skinless 
you slide through your days unnoticed 
remember that army obstacle course you entered with old school friends, 
when you ran through mud and manure and contracted flesh-eating proteins
that removed your epidermis
how easy it was for the skin to peel, for viscous fluid, 
clear, bloodless, to roll down your calves
and how easy it was for the cardigan to rip the interconnected cells
from your flesh

you have no skin and yes, there are strengths how easy it is
to feel the young jonquils unfurling from your flesh
with a glance and you are stamen and stem
how easy it is to exude sweet spring musk
horny jasmine and magnolia on heat
and to sit beneath the soft skinned melaleucas
and imagine coccyx reverting to tail, bones emptying and 
hair reverting to feathers
how easy it is to flit amongst the mangroves

also, how difficult it is to the be the skinless amongst your predatory race,
you cry beneath those paper-skinned trees, 
and you think of a friend’s client or a client’s client, 
the one who swallowed razor blades
and apparently the oesophagus is resilient
and you hate that word resilient,
a word used as both blindfold and gag
to ignore scar tissue and shrapnel in the belly
to avoid asking could life 
be lived another way.

we do not know ourselves

let me tell you about us, all five million of us:

we are a city allergic to the damp, when waters rise, we forget to flee

instead, we gaze upwards

searching for sky fire, mistaking light mist for feather embers.

we are a people programmed for brightness, in this postcard, bridge framed city

coaxing bud to open into wisteria and mulberry and

shoving tufts of jasmine into windowsill jars

herding spring like sugar fuelled children onto greyhound coaches,

and all the school fetes and blossom festivals,

fairy floss and food trucks:

Turkish gozleme and vegan donuts

a Filipino family singing

on open mic:

a high school teacher brings her newborn to the festival and

the basketball boys/the almost juvie knowntothecops boys

clear a path for her child,

space, space they call to each other

shrinking as a sign of respect,

let me tell you about us,

without sunlight we do not know ourselves.