The Second Layer

The heat is living in my back.

The red has turned a deeper black.

I sit beneath the yellow lamp

and feel the evening air grow damp.

I pull a strip of paper skin,

translucent, dried, and very thin.

It comes away without a sound

and flutters softly to the ground.

Across my wrist, a band of white,

a ghost of time kept out of sight.

Where once the metal used to stay,

the summer couldn't find its way.