My skin, the jacket of my spirit, is a patchwork quilt to be worn for warmth. <br /> <br />The rough redness of my dry hands shows the signs of premature aging from all the writing I do while my hands are cold. <br /> <br />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. <br /> <br />My breasts shine pale and pink, the soft pillows for children's napping heads. <br /> <br />My neck goes red when I am angry and white when I am sick. <br /> <br />On my feet, the quilt has its flaws. The tough and wrinkled soles of yellow-white spots clash with the peach toes and ankles. <br /> <br />But my face, oh my face, oh my poor, mismatched face, it is the part of the quilt sewn by a blind woman. <br /> <br />My perfect forehead of unwavering peach and matching temples fade into ruddy cheeks with brown polka dots for freckles. <br /> <br />Where my cheeks sink so deeply thanks to Anorexia's hold on me, they turn almost green with shadow and veins. <br /> <br />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) . <br /> <br />My face is a mesh of a dozen countries and a hundred generations. <br /> <br />My face reflects my mother's pink, peach, white, soft European tones. <br /> <br />My face reflects my father's rich olive, tan, sun-fed complexion. <br /> <br />My skin, the jacket of my spirit, is a patchwork quilt to be worn for warmth.<br /><br />Laura Kiernan<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/skin-18/
