Skin is Unavoidable

It is winter and I bring you clothes.
Carry them in brown paper bags
worn loose like cotton. Tiny lints let go.
Saggy arms of sweaters and patched-up hats,
unfolded. I won't sell them.
Leave them on your sidewalk under lamps
and the slush drips. Somehow it is warm.
So they'll fold themselves in slush, 
make a little mold garden company
before they get kicked onto melting ice.
Maybe you will recognize a sock, smile,
ask me, thank me? 
Yes it's warm inside my elbows,
anyway the sacks are sweet,
giving clothes at night,
sloppy fire that I make. Still,
I need to feel newly skinned,
if not naked. 
Trash send me one new tight red shirt 
to stretch over my shell and three new potatoes. 
I will boil off the soft worn brown skins
in hard tap water over my gas flame. 
Soon we will eat something empty.



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