A Peel Poem by Emerson Roberts

I cast these words on creeping ink
A butcher’s sink of bloody stink

In the accident, my face was ruptured,
Like a blister pack of pomegranate seeds.
Torn away like sheets from an adulterous bed.

I lost my lips, lids, nose and chin
My forehead too was snatched away
Like masking tape
From a damp cardboard display
Only my eyes remained
Like the meat of broken mollusks
Cupped in the briny pain
Of salty sin
On the livid edge of oblivion

The green clad nametags came and went
Dripping beads of clear cement
They basted me in morphine hues
Directing care
Snapping packets of tools
And swaddling me in chilly clouds
To slow the rot
And sober my skin
As the nurses floated in
Riding conveyor belts
While the capsules plunged into my mouth
Like the mad beginning
Of a penguin migration
Launching into the gap between my mandible
And cranium.

Odd, but I came to despise,
The dubbing, Lucky to be alive.