Skin by Martin Porter

In the beginning was the word Stretched across the frontier like a hide Between creation and the void. Vapid, she approaches, a wall of face powder Held in place by skin, stretched so tight A push of a pin might tear her apart, Dilated pupils flashing inside a shell of cosmetic, Countenance with the dreary glow of the brand. You cannot tell if she is angry, absent, or just bored, She is her own existence. She knows the words That describe her are what really count, Not her false biology, And she knows that the search for ultimate meaning Is pseudoscience, fake knowledge and empty, With the boundary stretched either Between something and something Or her make-up and some unstable vacuum Waiting to collapse, but she knows not which. She knows not which. She positions herself on some edge And a single prick explodes her into the world To promulgate knowledge like the black hole.

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