Birth of an egg

The shock of the yellow,

the tug of the chalazae unfurling

and dropping away from me like a stone,

under the pressure of uninvited breath.

 

A baptism in lutein-stained albumen

forecloses convention.

Candle me now and see only space;

My destiny has slipped beyond me.

 

Hollowed, I am free-range.

Collector’s Humour

‘Ink and skin, human remains and preserved specimen, museum object and trace of subjective memory: all of these descriptions cohere around and within the Wellcome tattooed skins’

Gemma Angel, ‘A Movement of the Soul’

 

Snake eyes

one pip on each die

the dog throw

 

A cur’s tag

inked on leathery-bark

to mark a crawled life

 

Even after death,

the gambler’s loss

is the collector’s gain

 

Skin inside scales

eyes forever open

in the dark body of a snake-skin box.