They gave me back
a black,
wrinkled bin bag
full of clothes cut
quickly & carefully
from my body
with those
neat surgical scissors
while I was still strapped down,
frozen for fear
of what might be broken.
As if getting the pieces back
could make a whole again,
as if I’d want
neat halves of clothes
for a formless body.
The t-shirt suddenly darkened
with red,
the ugly underwear,
the shoes that somehow don’t fit anymore;
must have been for
some other feet;
that girl lying there in the road,
the one who didn’t get back up
& when they peeled me off,
the skin stuck &
the blood ran in the rain.
Did he taste it?
Sloughing down throats
& choke.
The one who spilt it always knows;
hurrying to get home
only makes you later