Skin Deep
for Vanessa Linden

i.
imagined I'd have gone without goodbye
I'd have left without farewell

as if manners, without a word,
without warning, evaporated

I'd have had to have been
hit across the head

I'd have had to have lost my mind
to abandon a ship with you on board

without a hug and a kiss
without tears in my eyes

over the sweet sorrow which parting is
the rip, the tear when we come apart

shirt or dress in a fist
as in a fight, at times
clothes are ripped
or are ripped off

to expose underwear
or underwear alone remaining

you thought I'd have pulled away
like a no manners boy or girl
of today might

though I should not indict
the age we're in, age we're of

just over 20 and you're a gem
you love your neighbour as yourself

how dull the 10 commandments are
the Our Father Prayer

so many years have passed over them
years they've passed through

like knives through sea air
an entire set, rusted now

how glad I am that you are sharp,
efficacious, lovely, loving still

though the world is old, we're new still
as pristine as was Eden

before Eve and Adam fell through
into do-do
beneath boards of an outhouse
over-the-hill, in Bain Town

ii.
here, come into the men's room
the lady's is locked already

no need to touch down, she advised

I've sprayed the seats
to clean them already
you do not have to sit

but use it


© Obediah Michael Smith, 2009
7:44 p.m. 23.01.09