Saving My Kids… (Rev.) Poem by Margaret Alice

I am as ugly as sin,
the moment I make peace with it,
though loving everything beautiful,
seeking harmony, when I make peace
with my disintegrating facial skin,
remembering how shocked I was the
first time my face peeled off
totally at nineteen – when I accepted
ugliness as my birthright;

you point out that no factor 50
sunscreen will save what is left –
I feel better about it all, the sun
is a killer, not the nice friend
I always cast him as; The Maya Sun
that made everyone disappear, that
had the priests offering still beating
hearts of still living human beings;
to keep the sun from consuming
their landscape and everything else

I am better off not blaming you
for my skin’s moon landscape, with
craters on my chin; you saying no
facial cream can redeem the damage done
while a teenager in South Africa
Remembered travelling with my niece
when I was fifteen, warning me against
the dangers of too much sun,
then going off to Durban at nineteen,
with my friends at university,
never bothering about sun-screen
Yes, you are right, nothing can save
me now; I’m on the way to resemble my
grandma and my mother at seventy five,
the most I can do is save my kids...