A story, “The Seven Ages of Skin”
When I am an old women and have purple skin
Had we but world enough and time
There is a spot just here, in the hollow of my pelvis
Nobody saw him, the tattoo’d man
Sunday, my father working in the frost, the skin of his hands red and cracking
And of a baby, so smooth, ready for scars
The midwife was small, beautiful, with olive skin and hands that were light
It is the softness in her face
If I should die, think only this of me: dying, my friend, is not all it’s cracked up to be
I will be illustrated at the very least
Smooth skin, but not a shaved cat
If skin was an instrument and we played it
Move him so the sun catches his child-dying face
The fingertip, the ear, the neck
Perhaps red-raw, perhaps soft and talcumed
The machine sucked it from the bed, your skin, mine, inseparable
Your scars, one like an arrow, one a heart
Sometimes the person, sometimes the skin
You reach across and touch me. My heart leaps up
But you wear gloves and dark glasses
Eventually, we are all naked
But it is the Caesar scar I love
Trace me, slowly
There is something electric
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