One year in every ten
A sort of walking miracle, my skin
Bright as a Nazi lampshade
My face a featureless, fine
The nose, the eye pits, the full set of teeth?
The grave cave ate will be
And I a smiling woman
And like the cat I have nine times to die
To annihilate each decade
What a million filaments
The peanut-crunching crowd
Them unwrap me hand and foot--
I may be skin and bone
Nevertheless, I am the same, identical woman
The first time it happened I was ten
The second time I meant
To last it out and not come back at all
They had to call and call
And pick the worms off me like sticky pearls
Is an art, like everything else
I do it exceptionally well
I do it so it feels like hell
I do it so it feels real
I guess you could say I've a call
It's easy enough to do it in a cell
It's easy enough to do it and stay put
Comeback in broad day
To the same place, the same face, the same brute
For the eyeing of my scars, there is a charge
For the hearing of my heart--
And there is a charge, a very large charge
For a word or a touch
Or a piece of my hair or my clothes
That melts to a shriek
Do not think I underestimate your great concern
Flesh, bone, there is nothing there--
Herr God, Herr Lucifer
I rise with my red hair
And I eat men like air