Poetry

Books

young fresh skin
taut like a peach’s, a newborn
kitten’s glistening nose.
I’m bathed; shining amniotic ink,
bloody and black. primordial.
I cry
onto blinding, glossy white.
perfect opposites. I miss that
metal placenta.
My front is untouched,
dawn snow with no footprint.
I stick my tongue at you
in glorious technicolour, as my first words
splutter. you stick your nose in, and I’m stinking
of life.
you have to have me.
sleek and shimmering
like an expensive watch. box fresh.
you could cut the grass
with my pages. In fact
you chopped off mummy’s head. cut
her cord with a chainsaw. now you play
Doctor, and deliver me
from this papery foetus
from my wooden womb.
you pay for me with my brother,
I don’t recognise him.
he’s had a green facelift.
rather resembles Darwin, now.
And for what? A life of prostitution;
Julie on the next desk, Brian at number 9,
so many hands,
they take their toll.
coffee mug, cream cake fingers. sticky
and sordid,  O they mark.
we all need our marks.
Now the denouement.
I swim in dust,
fingerprints and jam.
the slime of life. I miss that metal placenta.
Now close me up kiddo.
Let Granny sleep.

Jonathan Shiel