Blood, Flesh and Bones

O, for thy blessed skin, draping thy torso

Radiating key images to beholder’s sight ‘n mind

Acuities thus forged, save for the blind

Launching love at first sight

Much like hair, eyes, nose, lips

Whose contours spark admiration, adoration

Forsaking traits of souls laying buried deep

Worthy of love ‘n awe for all eternity

For doth the skin ‘n exteriors

Not speak to us or those espying

Forcing choices ‘pon us

Via seeing, not feeling nor sensing?

Yet beneath them all lie our vitals

Blood all infusive, red for all

Raw flesh, in glistening pinks

White fat streaking ‘tween stacks of flesh

Deep lie the bones, white ‘n firm

Body’s scaffold, same for all

After death, remain for millennia, then some

Betraying neither clan, tribe nor race

Yet ‘tis the skin ‘n façades

That push us to love or scorn

Redeem or rebuke, reject or abet

Enacting blanket measures

Punishing for being ‘n traits inborn

They as choiceless as we, yet ‘tis bile we pick

For the power we have, the power they don’t

‘N all for traits no more ‘n skin deep

We speak of them in cursory tones

Yet ‘tis more ‘bout us bereft of epiphanies

Judging them as though we knew

Little did we know, ‘tis our souls we reprove

Then gods we invoke

Of love we claim they be

But only us does s/he cherish

The rest can vanish or perish

Hell awaits, those not of us

Gods will save us

Not them with skins to loathe

Gods that see no deeper than our own eyes can

What’s honestly to be made of such gods?

Alwi Shatry, Angeles City, Philippines, 18 August 2020