Skin Poem by Frank Bana

I’m just the medium kind
A furry ape-like creature
Thankful for my legs and smile
Thankful to you all
And for everything on me
That won’t bruise too easily
Things that work quite perfectly

I got this clear light skin
That I hope to stay within
It’s pleasant and it’s smooth
After I’ve been shaved
I always get this longing
To walk again in England
Where my body once belonged
To the place that I come from

Aircraft bore away my life
Ways of escape destroyed my life
Foreign films messed up my life
The quest for love meanwhile
Africa conceived my life
New York once more destroyed my life
I could have kept my name
I could have built and settled down
Somewhere near Bromley town

And now my skin breaks out
Like a chronic haemophiliac
- Burning tattoos of your name
In places I can’t see
Emerge random, mysteriously -
Always the thought that counts

My teeth will need some fixing
Before they come around
To etch the numbers on my skin
To carry out what’s left of me
Before I’m forced to say
I never found the answers, but
There was no other way.