Within This Skin

Within This Skin (9th October 2008)

Every sinew bound; bird caught
in fishing line; inside each cell,
I’m drowned; the lost can’t find
a way out.

Just water, light and air;
within this skin exists a sin yet to
be committed; I am not fitted
for this

troubled masterpiece, this
God-made, free-willed mind;
within this skin I find I am unable
to breathe.

I carve an air hole, pores lined up
like join the dots; I joined too much
and now I flow out through the vent
I’ve made;

a miniature freedom, escapism,
masochism; an exodus from a
fleshy prison; every sinew found
reason to

draw a note out from my
throat, and now the water flows
like sound through light and air,
the echo

hanging, spider-web fragile,
there. My wings are spread:
I am not dead, I wait in
single file.