You ask me who I am,
this fool whose home-made skin
once glistened
with a million shades
of fake and real, incorporating
all the human I hungered to be
and wished to be envisaged in me;
this fool who
from a distance, glowed,
yet seen up close,
singed the eye.

You ask me who I am;
this woman so deeply seared
by uncertainty.
I can tell you I erred,
and that in erring,
I learned to learn,
crawling toward the cure
as each vain expectation,
each flaking fantasy,
each false pretence
was slaked away,
leaving me both less and more.

You ask me who I am
as I watch my multi-coloured dream-coat
shrink to flickering embers,
surrendered by my own hand
to the questing flames
of questioned truth.

You ask me who I am;
I’ll tell you what I know.
Old flesh shows through the vest
my mother dressed me…