they scraped holes in you sometimes that tore
as you stretched: they never threw you away
just wrote around the holes because it costs money
feeding the creature you came from, killing it
soaking its skin in watered lime to rot the hairs off
on one side you are cream or gray, the other chalky
you were heavy and stank, slipped
through the parchmenters’ fingers
the part that covered the tender insides
of legs, the thin skin on bellies: this they looped
tight with cords connected to short pegs
set in a frame so they could pull you taut
and use a flat sharp arc of metal
to pare down your layers, past the sheen
of waterproof to where the pores don’t show
then you were matte and smooth
as anything so tough the scribes could not
forget you were alive
[first published by Poems & Plays]