SKIN POEMS
MPF 15 -- A LUNAR SKIN LOTION
I once used SPF 15,
but now I walk outside at dusk.
Light sensitive, I know that means
I need a dermatologist's
prescription for some MPF
to shield my skin against moonbeams.
A 15 should be high enough
if I don't saunter in the buff.
For years Ed Dewke's FlakeHQ.com provided information about psoriasis. I was its poet laureate from 2006 through 2010. Ed Dewke's intro, our interview, more than three dozen poems (including ekphrastics to paintings by Robert Chapla, Judy Molyneux, and Marco Rosales Shaw) are in the 50-page PDF clickable below. When Ed achieved a cure and went on to other endeavors, the flakehq website was discontinued. A friend archived it for a few years, but as of 2016 it seems to have disappeared. The 50-page PDF worked when I clicked 8/8/16.
Eucalyptus Envy, with a painting by Robert Chapla (Bolinas Eucalyptus), remains my favorite p-poem.
EUCALYPTUS ENVY
A eucalyptus
sheds its bark
the way we flakers
strip off skin.
It's no wonder
I feel akin
to this tree.
Had I its slender leaves,
I'd place them over me,
maybe quite gracefully
instead of hiding limbs
with slacks and sleeves.
If what grew under
my outer layer
were not inflamed
but palely fairer,
the way the eucalyptus is
when its thick skin disengages,
I'd flash a shin
now and then.