Caul

Note: a caul is a part of the amniotic membrane enclosing a fetus that may be found still covering a newborns head and/or face after birth. Happening in just 1 in 80,000 births (est) it rare and was believed to be good luck in certain parts of medieval Europe. However, in other times and places it has been a sign that a child is marked by destiny, spiritually powerful, or even blessed with foresight... an in some very specific incidents, it was thought a caul marked out someone for a journey to the hangman's noose.

You have never seen my face - no one has

Though you may know its shape,

like a shadow under waves.

I cannot drown with this second skin in place;

I swim in the grey; untouchable, unknown,

An onion skin caul, fine and hazy,

lies on my lips and eyes like a blurring shroud

and every storm

presses it tight.

Tight as a crevice, as a noose,

tight as the line between day and night.

I think I will swallow it, soon.

peel it in stinging strips and grind it between my teeth to peer,

unflinching,

at the old unknown beneath...

no longer wondering if there's anything there at all.

Not clinging to the pleasant façade -

blowing away the cobwebbed calm...

and perhaps find a hole where a face should be.

A hollow for others to fill.

An inky darkness, a writhing mass,

gore threatening to spill without its skin thin mask.

You have never seen my face... no one has,

I haven't.

But I've been told its a pretty caul.