I exfoliate with sea salt

I moisturise in garlic

I rub raw pink chicken

smooth as a baby

and wet.

So I can smell

deep in my skin

all those meals that I’ve cooked.

Ginger mixed with onions

butter and cauliflower.

And sometimes

if the time is right

just inside my wrist

is salmon.

I’m proudest though of my left thumb

hard as a nut with its own grand canyon.

Here years of bluntly cutting cucumber have

given me my war wound

my armour plated thumb.

You my hands aren’t as soft as some

nor is your skin a pearly peach.

But with you in my kitchen

I can hold the whole world

and I can slice red pepper

at the speed

of light.