Skinner's Knife

The legless man had a purloined copy of the Venus de Milo hung on a nail on the wall in his motel room. (Astraddle the sepulcher, lingeringly) he spoke in gibberish, his eyes fixed on the missing de Milo arms. A Jackdaw flew flapping across his forefront, wings cutting into the sky like a Skinner’s knife. The legless man pushed his handcart out from beneath the Seder’s awning and whispered, ‘Cupper’s Finest, feign of liver and gall’. As a farthing child the man without legs was forced to wear short-pants with cuffs that cut into his legless legs. His mother bought him short-pants made from Egyptian cloth that belled out at the bottom like flour sifters. They buttoned at the fly, had curlicue stitching round the pockets and pleats. The amble legged man shackled and shot his way atop the aside ways. ‘No rustle for the leery and incontinent’ said the man without legs; his tam-o’-shanter angled a pigeon to the left and a Moyle to the right.