Torque

I’ve lost the word for it, the strip, the skein,
cut from a hanged man’s skin, used as a rope
to bind another to your own desire. It haunts me.
I know it was part of the tale of Arthur. Mordred.
I think of the knife running the inside of my thigh,
slick, smooth, tight past knee and ankle, around
each toe, yes, it must be, each toe and webspace,
then up the outside of the leg beyond the hip,
waist, to the armpit out along the curved underarm
to elbow, thumb, five fold fingers, up to triceps,
shoulder, neck, ear, must separate the ear. . . still,
even this would not turn me inside out, a single
twist, I could be a Mobius strip forever, show
you my outside’s inside, my inside’s out, glow
red and striped white, ooze to bone cold taut, dry.