her tin skin

i want her tin skin. i want
  her militant barbie breast,
resistant, cupped, no, cocked
  in the V of her elbow. i want
my curves mountainous
 
and locked. i want her
  arabesque eyes, i want her
tar markings, her curlicues,
  i want her tin skin. she
is a tree, her hair a forest
 
of strength. i want to be
  adorned with bottles. i
want my brownness
  to cover all but the silver
edges of my tin skin. my
 
sculptor should have made
  me like her round-bellied
maker hewed her: with chain-
  saw in hand, roughly. cut
away from me everything
 
but the semblance of tender.
   let nothing but my flexed
foot, toeing childhood, tell
  the night-eyed, who know
how to look, what lies within.
 
 
  —after alison saar’s “compton nocturne”