If you peel off the skin
and shove aside the crisscross
of muscles around this back
and chest, a small child
will approach you - head
down but arms out-
stretched.

                And he will take
your hand and lead you back
to where his world began:
to a woman too much in love
with a spoiled-brat man,
to a house that swallows you whole,
to a tableful of in-laws
in a bellyache of rooms.

                The child
will show you the intricate mechanism
of a wrinkle and how it works
like a time bomb on a smile
or how the shrug of a shoulder
can be deadlier than a slapped
 face or how the arch
of an eyebrow annihilates.

And the child will lead you
to bedsprings that chatter
in vacant rooms, to the club-
print of a flat-
iron in the foxglove wallpaper,
to the torn mattress,
and to the kicked Christmas tree,

                There is
even a place to hide when words
become coarse and ugly.
But coaxing won't get the child
to show you this. He drops
your hand and runs off to
be there alone.

                When the child
comes back, he won't even
touch you. What he wants now
is a scarf of muscles wrapped
around him and a tight
bandage of skin.