Skin

 

Speckled egg.

Skin
It was a road map.
The biographical cover of her life.
She lifted her arm to the light,
it was as fragile as a birds wing.
Placing her fingers in front of a candle flame,
as she had done when a child;
she could see the biographical map in 3D
The colours had changed she noted sadly, roads
on the map once blue were now purple, and
her skin was quite speckled with brown spots,
as soft and intricate as those on a hen’s egg,
so delicate, the shell encasing new life,
with hopes for the future, like she had had once.
Now her skin had become like tissue;
a soft shroud enfolding a precious  gift.
She had become the family heirloom, 
carefully wrapped  in her skin
to be stored away for ever.


(C)Diana Leighton, October 2011