Piercings

Slow winkle, soft parts shielded, spirals
on its axis, drawing within the shell exposed,
unfurling its crustacean cloak.

Your foot, pale as toothwort, heel's cracked skin
peeled in strips, presses a crust of pine needles
in the birdless plantation near Winter's Gibbet.

His fingers are cracked, whitlows by the nail,
skin thinning to translucent folds of silk,
greased with lanolin, while the basin foams.

There, back of the bike shop, among oily rags,
a puncture breathes a necklace of bubbles; skin
tears, a drop or so of blood browning a floorboard.

Published in Other Poetry, Series III, No 1