Monday Poem

Illinois man arrested for spray-painting
swastikas on gravestones  —
NY Daily News, 5/31/18

Epidermis

….. skinhead:
a thing shrink-wrapped in pink tissue,
shorthand for fear

….. epidermis of a skinhead:
a nonsensitive layer of skin
covering the true skin, or corium;
or the outermost living layer of an animal,

a layer so thin it flakes like filo 
when touched even lightly
by love or veracity

….. corium:
true skin the sheathing of ordinary saints,
a tougher, deeper covering than that
enveloping the shrunken skulls of
those who graffiti grave stones 
with swastikas;typically absent
in skinheads

Jim Culleny
5/31/18