her tin skin

Evie Shockley

i want her tin skin. i want

       her militant barbie breast,

resistant, cupped, no, cocked

       in the V of her elbow. i want

my curves mountainous

and locked. i want her

       arabesque eyes, i want her

tar markings, her curlicues,

       i want her tin skin. she

is a tree, her hair a forest

of strength. i want to be

       adorned with bottles. i

want my brownness

       to cover all but the silver

edges of my tin skin. my

sculptor should have made

       me like her round-bellied

maker hewed her: with chain-

       saw in hand, roughly. cut

away from me everything

but the semblance of tender.

       let nothing but my flexed

foot, toeing childhood, tell

     the night-eyed, who know

how to look, what lies within.

                                                          —after alison saar’s “compton nocturne”