subtraction

undressed and
shaved - not a
single hair do i have left
naked
egg i stand
head-bowed with all i
ever owned
removed
and what is left
existence shorn 
bare bone, unsightly 
flesh hiding
life the immaterial core 
where pasts are stored 
anamnesis of all that
is, i stand with it 
shivering in the light 
crowded-out
by other
pink white
eggs scraped clean
of all their living - they look 
like me - 
i wonder can
i survive such
thin tally - less now
sloughed, than i have
ever been - or 
are heart and 
mind the only
real things, the rest 
mere trimmings, layers 
obscuring true
meaning and value
by which we live, breathe
choose – not




money or clothes, not 
position, taste, possessions, not 
accolades, beauty or face
we hold within
the only things that
make us human:
memories in our heads - 
loves in our hearts - 
deeds of our hands -
untouchable grain - 
without them 
we are nothing
subtract from me 
diminish me with loss 
scrape my hair my face
steal my clothes, my rings, my dignity 
yet still in me resides 
a force unseen
which no man
with a gun, no barbed-wire
pen
can part 
from its own 
living twin

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