Raw

These hands are awful

Uncooked by experience

A grease which clings

To the eyes office.

An oesophagus

Gives no speech to the skewer

Draws the fingers demure

A black score on paper.

It is the colour of bone

And something crawls

Which would be otherwise covered

The sauce of expectancy

Dries like an enamel.

I have fried

The offal of my thoughts

And hoped

For the second course

Like the scent of a family.

Unhappily

Hard, the batter which blends

At the edge

Of bronze.

It was once conversation

Now dredged like a sugar

The tongue takes over

Yet still the palms bite

The nails like a shell

Warming the mollusc beneath.

Skin shrinks into itself, breathes

In a grief as is meted to write

Coursing on keys

Which release the type

And the smell of meat.

Completely ripe.