Silver Skin

Young man lucid as an onion

Silver skin thin and flint bones

Jutt-jabbing from his span frame

He shrinks under himself and

Waters up as likely as a pear

While the pretty flowers take aim

But they hold their poison arrows

Since he burns up with his own flame

And all his dogs are hunting dogs

Alive inside the rattle of his hearth

Half-starved they turn and tear

He wants to pull strings but they

Just come away in his hand

He seeks a grip, a sort of tension to  

Steady his saw as it backs and forths

Jiggers himself with rough cuts

In this youth fountain he is healed

But each day a new batch of stings

Time will clot his frailty, cut by cut

He will be hard and dry, braced

By the ballast of his own strides

Pray he keeps a patch, a tinge

Of what it is to water up, this thing

He hates, the thin sting, silver skin