The Bones Beneath

Inspection

We sit expectant in a row

Like a tray of pretty pink cakes

Waiting to be purged of yous.

We sit on orange faux leather; smiles –

Each judgment erased –

Caress us like awkward distant relatives.

We sit solemn, apart.

But we share the cry of a cake baked and binned

And the cracks in our womb-warm

Wraps show. They show like palm-lines.

We’re the hidden, who can never hide.

We sit, and every name’s not mine.

I sit and feel it in my sweat

Every name’s not mine; no escape.

The panoptic yous are everywhere.