Laura Kiernan - Skin

My skin, the jacket of my spirit, is a patchwork quilt to be worn for warmth.

The rough redness of my dry hands shows the signs of premature aging from all the writing I do while my hands are cold.

The pale, transparent English skin on my legs my never brown except in scaly patches where the sun hits the bulging calf muscles I have developed from walking everywhere I go in flat shoes.

My breasts shine pale and pink, the soft pillows for children's napping heads.

My neck goes red when I am angry and white when I am sick.

On my feet, the quilt has its flaws. The tough and wrinkled soles of yellow-white spots clash with the peach toes and ankles.

But my face, oh my face, oh my poor, mismatched face, it is the part of the quilt sewn by a blind woman.

My perfect forehead of unwavering peach and matching temples fade into ruddy cheeks with brown polka dots for freckles.

Where my cheeks sink so deeply thanks to Anorexia's hold on me, they turn almost green with shadow and veins.

On my shin and nose are little patches of bright pink surrounded by olivey-white peachness, where a child spilled her watercolors on the quilt (which she wasn't supposed to be using as a dropcloth anyway) .

My face is a mesh of a dozen countries and a hundred generations.

My face reflects my mother's pink, peach, white, soft European tones.

My face reflects my father's rich olive, tan, sun-fed complexion.

My skin, the jacket of my spirit, is a patchwork quilt to be worn for warmth.

Laura Kiernan

http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/skin-18/