Caressing That Which Had Long Been Dead. Poem by RIC BASTASA

i am trying to write
from my innermost, i
am attempting to
skin myself, so you can
see the beauty of my
bones,

it is like stripping myself
from the burden of clothes,
and soon i shall be naked
before you, like a confession,
which you may hear, like a
litany of my own weaknesses
and shortcomings,

i am finished with all those
metaphors, i may go with the
literalness of my free verse,
like, what you see is what
you get thing, off the grid.

i am removing fences now, but
slowly, so i shall not bleed and
die sooner than my truths, a
manifold of coverings, until
what you see is the plainness
of my own light

so here i am dancing to the
sound of a drudgery, the songs
for the dead, in a funeral march,
hear the wailing of the women
i love, the murmurs of my secret
longings, the silence of my
lies, the hushes of hands that
touch my hair, caressing that
which had long been dead.