Perfect Skin
This skin on my foot
is turning to cratered scales –
like that of F’s
re-homed grandpa –
with his octogenarian husk
flaking from
his bared feet and shins
as if he had been set adrift
on the sea and salt-burnt
That old combatant held court
in his Surrey nursing home
thirty five years ago
His layers of recalls and of dust –
his remnants in a rented room –
have long been hoovered up
Perfect –
perhaps there is hope for me yet