The Skin is a body poem, a reflection on body wisdom, overthinking, and the marvel of the body’s ability to repair itself.

The Skin – Body Poem

My skin’s wiser than my brain in how it fixes itself by itself, my brain offset/ on repeat, quizzing, badgering what if? and why? and why not? a pernickety tax inspector or big-stick supervisor / dragging, the cerebrum’s art / alien to my skin’s fast-response signalling system recoiling or buzzing, a preacher of truth proclaiming to the world and its cousin – provided I don’t cake it with makeup – my reds and greens, the skin travelling along my grandmother’s double chin garnishing my neck, charting cold winters with a picture book of broken veins on my cheeks or childbearing with a floppy perineum I’m supposed to tighten through daily exercises if only my brain didn’t get its oar in and made itself up, once and for all, not swing from “you must” to “why bother” over and over and over again, bereft of the pulse of goosebumps, blisters, sunburn, zits, pimples, pores, wrinkles and binding storylines.