To Get Inside

First, Mum gets out my birth certificate:
a strange fragment slid out of lilac plastic,

delicate as Great-Nanny’s forearm flesh,
exclaiming in faded Britannia-red ink

every inch of my undeveloped history,
edged curdling under a slab of October sky

as if pained by this newfound nudity,
snatched by the scary lady’s anvil hands.

Next zips un-zipped — our pockets gutted,
contents laid out in a mass burial across

a bogey-shaded nail-gouged table —
then down, down, to the menagerie of men

to air clogged with cheap washing powder
and apple cider vinegar, the meaty balm

of Y chromosomes and sound convulsing,
coagulating, into a brief, desperate hum.