If you run your hands along my sides

you can feel the ridges beneath my skin,

the raised lines of glass,

an old pharmacy trick,

so those who could not read their words

wouldn’t pick up the poison

by accident.

When you have peeled my clothes away,

they will still be there.

The final line of defence

when all the labels have been cast off

and you could be forgiven

to think I was medicine

instead of arsenic wrapped in curves.