We Are After All, Human Skins... Poem by RIC BASTASA

fOR The meantime tHAT
tENderness has not arrived yet
the Truth is
we survive with what is present
and Available
The one not felt but well used
We claim the right still to enjoy
The temporary wrong ones
Until the upright comes
The ONe THAT liberates us from this
Madness
This ticking flesh, this mirage in the
middle of our deserts
Until we feel the
coolness of our Oasis
It is the aridity that is here
That makes us drunk with Air
NOw, when the promised truth comes
We too shall drink to that

They must understand what we are made of
We are not made of wood
or steel
We are all flesh and blood and bones
soft cartilages, elastic veins,
hairy skin, nails that do not feel
pain
a little of that,
but more of the vast skin that
feels the prick
of the bodkin.