Daljit Nagra - Digging

Squatted against the bedroom door with left leg
stretched, wiping sweat from my thigh,
I shave hairs to the shape of a passport photo.
Into the good skin, steeling along
the top end of the picture - a straight incision
until blob by seamless blob, over
the Stanley knife, a rivering of blood.

 

Once under the fold, down to the roots,
nerve-hand holds for slicing
level the parallel lines of a photo.
Leaning deeper so the unconscious,
deeper so the gore geometric be heaped up,
I drop the silvery...