"her tin skin" by Evie Shockley

her tin skin
by Evie Shockley

i want her tin skin. i want
       her militant barbie breast,
resistant, cupped, no, cocked
       in the V of her elbow. i want
my curves mountainous

and locked. i want her
       arabesque eyes, i want her
tar markings, her curlicues,
       i want her tin skin. she
is a tree, her hair a forest

of strength. i want to be
       adorned with bottles. i
want my brownness
       to cover all but the silver
edges of my tin skin. my

sculptor should have made
       me like her round-bellied
maker hewed her: with chain-
       saw in hand, roughly. cut
away from me everything

but the semblance of tender.
       let nothing but my flexed
foot, toeing childhood, tell
     the night-eyed, who know
how to look, what lies within.


                          —after alison saar’s “compton nocturne”







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