I Am Just Meat

Throughout it all, the same
images occur –
sand, sea, sky,
landscape of my soul,
references and obsessions.

And sometimes there is one
who does not know
she is the field of stars
forever
out of my reach

but perhaps those stars
are really nothing
more than punctures
in the shadow that surrounds
me.

When that shadow
falls, its phantom blade
slices me open
like a fish upon the filleter’s bench,

glassy eyed, no longer gasping
but reduced to consumable portions.
In the end I am
just meat
for someone else’s table

From The Devil in My Shoes (2005)
Published by Auckland University Press