This Waste of Skin

This Waste of Skin

 

 

Do I have the morning in me?

I have not. Let it be late afternoon,

or early evening, even night,

for what was imprinted by the leaving

and who is left that is grieving?

Hung like a stone from her neck,

less of the donkey, more of the ass,

a dragnet, a clinging, wringing thing

from the depths of primeval morass,

trawled through the scuds and scum

and landed lucky in the sun.

More like one of those clamps,

an electronic tag you bade her wear,

near tailor made, a badly fitting glove,

to trail, to suspect, to call it love.

Yes, the parties you were uninvited to

yet followed her in, a waste of skin,

just a fetid gust of wind in her wake,

behind their shadows of slipping smiles,

blagging free drinks and always the spy

you might slipper her later by and by

and she will write to life’s publishers,

sending her regrets and her apologies,

for that expanded rote of excuses

are not all yet compiled for anthologies.

This flower has been a long time plucked

is shredded petals in coffee shops,

all anxious glances over shoulders,

stirring the spoon and growing older,

laying waste to all good life,

you’ll slash the pistil with your knife.

Do I have the morning in me?

Search the dawn, search the skies,

all that you left behind is chained to night,

her dragged soul sure it is somehow right

to visit and visit and never halt,

while any skull worth its salt

is unconcerned with blame or fault,

lying bare faced forever grins

and contemplates this waste of skin.