The skin

It feels like sandpaper, dried over.

Is that what it takes?

A dry , cold winter in a foreign land,

Before it turns its coat?

Cracks, flakes, itches.

Where was the promised protection,

The supple comfort of continued elasticity?

But I should’ve known better:

It had a spotty record , from my youth,

The scars of my adolescence.

And I tried to sooth with creams,

And I try to persuade with ointments.

But it betrays me still.

Hurts,chafes, breaks, tatters.

The betrayal I can not postpone,

Like hunchback Richard,

Abandoned on the field,

Among the follicles, I fall,

Into cracks, and wrinkles.

A hoarse, a hoarse,

Soon a furrow of disloyalty..