subtraction

undressed and
shaved - not a
single hair do i have left

naked
egg i stand
head-bowed with all i

ever owned
removed
and what is left

existence shorn
bare bone, unsightly
flesh hiding

life the immaterial core
where pasts are stored
anamnesis of all that

is, i stand with it
shivering in the light
crowded-out

by other
pink white
eggs scraped clean

of all their living - they look
like me -
i wonder can

i survive such
thin tally - less now
sloughed, than i have

ever been - or
are heart and 
mind the only

real things, the rest
mere trimmings, layers
obscuring true

meaning and value
by which we live, breathe
choose - not

money or clothes, not
position, taste, possessions, not
accolades, beauty or face

we hold within
the only things that
make us human:

memories in our heads -
loves in our hearts -
deeds of our hands -

untouchable grain -
without them
we are nothing

subtract from me
diminish me with loss
scrape by hair my face

steal my clothes, my rings, my dignity
yet still in me resides
a force unseen

which no man
with a gun, no barbed-wire
pen

can part
from its own
living twin

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