THE CLEAN SKIN...

More than some ashen membrane
Are the clean skin.
Tell me what they are?
Oh! How beautiful are these alien creatures!

They move with the wind
Under cover of night and sun.
Glowing and graceful they progress
Nearer my tenuous fear.

Seen and unseen,
Like I’ve just exited some dark room;
Under the sun everyone’s a ghost.

Phantoms, whose faces are washed away,
And whose hands are sickly white,
Blanched from unredeemed horrors,
Stand now, drumming rigid fingers
Across the consciousness
Under my clean skin.


© 2007 mrp/thepoetryman