Thin Skin

“If I’m thin,” said skin,
“it’s because I have been cut.”
The hands, who wanted nothing
and were incapable of choice, didn’t feel
responsible. Ears
weren’t listening; neither was the voice.

“If I’m thin,” said skin, “it’s because
I have been cut.”
“Not enough,” said the hermit soul,
who saved its love
for what it couldn’t see or touch
while spirit,
patient survivor of schooling without end,
had no answer.
Whoomp, whoomp bumped
the coward heart.

“Don’t blame me for your anger,”
said gallbladder. “It’s not my fault
that you’re a fool.”
“OK,” said skin, “but if I am thin
it’s because I have been cut.”

All this time the brain,
who in no-light,
half-light, utter darkness, conceived
itself as living in the sun,
who had never been caressed
or stung, who’d never had a gift
for playing dumb,
was struggling for control
of its old adversary tongue.

“If I’m thin,” said skin,
now in the tone of wire
scraped across a stone,
“it’s because I have been cut.”

“Come,” said the clothes, not unkindly,
“just get inside of us
and you’ll feel human again.”