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Cut

for Susan O'Neill Roe

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What a thrill ----
My thumb instead of an onion.
The top quite gone
Except for a sort of hinge
 
Of skin,
A flap like a hat,
Dead white.
Then that red plush.
 
Little pilgrim,
The Indian's axed your scalp.
Your turkey wattle
Carpet rolls
 
Straight from the heart.
I step on it,
Clutching my bottle
Of pink fizz. A celebration, this is.
Out of a gap
A million soldiers run,
Redcoats, every one.
 
Whose side are they on?
O my
Homunculus, I am ill.
I have taken a pill to kill
 
The thin
Papery feeling.
Saboteur,
Kamikaze man ----
 
The stain on your
Gauze Ku Klux Klan
Babushka
Darkens and tarnishes and when
 
The balled
Pulp of your heart
Confronts its small
Mill of silence
 
How you jump ----
Trepanned veteran,
Dirty girl,
Thumb stump.