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Daljit Nagra (b. 1966) was the first poet to win the Forward Prize for both his first collection...
Digging
Digging
Squatted against the bedroom door with left leg
stretched, wiping sweat from my thigh,
I shave hairs to the shape of a passport photo.
Into the good skin, steeling along
the top end of the picture - a straight incision
until blob by seamless blob, over
the Stanley knife, a rivering of blood.
Once under the fold, down to the roots,
nerve-hand holds for slicing
level the parallel lines of a photo.
Leaning deeper so the unconscious,
deeper so the gore geometric be heaped up,
I drop the silvery haft, the leg,
lug back the flap.
I hear a cry from some of myself.
So this is me. This
jameen. This meat
for which I war
myself.
This.
from Look We Have Coming to Dover! Read by the Author (P) Faber Audio 2008, original text copyright © Daljit Nagra 2007 from Look We Have Coming to Dover! (Faber & Faber, 2007), used by permission of the author and publisher
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