Edible Skin

It eats away at this shell I call home
as though it wants to turn me inside-out
and leave my guts on the sidewalk
bubbling, boiling and broiling
a human stew for a murder
of crows

It comes like the birth of a star
never mind that it’s always dawn somewhere
homeless dying under lace blankets of snow
their cadavers, statues to be tripped over
in the spring thaw

While my own bones
flake away, a chalk hill in the wind
burnt to cinders, among my crow stripped flesh
leaving nothing but edible skin
for anything resilient enough
to brave the baking earth
and feast

© Indie Adams 2013