Tonight's Poet Corner: A Victim Of Unknown Circumstances
A Victim Of Unknown Circumstances
by Belinda Roddie
away from the sun, so they stayed white
and raw and rubbery, like the pith of
an orange. Buttoning the coat up to
the last brass brooch kept the cold out
when standing in the river, and the boots
with steel zippers kept the water from
clogging the dying skin between the rows
of crackling, wood-like toes. Eaten away
by the elements, I remained clothed
and concealed.
Still, she saw my face from time to time, and
her kisses made the scabs sting
and threaten to erode. I was always patchy
from my own decay - a skeleton
that never actually revealed the brittle
bone beneath, a husk you couldn't
even suck marrow from if you were
hungry enough. But she laid into me,
until she stripped the leather from
my fingers, and the air made my flesh
gasp for sustenance - pink, puckered,
but never fully healed.
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