{"id":356,"date":"2011-08-23T11:00:00","date_gmt":"2011-08-23T11:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/ink.verticalplus.co.uk\/archive\/?p=356"},"modified":"2011-08-23T11:00:00","modified_gmt":"2011-08-23T11:00:00","slug":"j-s-watts-skin","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/j-s-watts-skin\/","title":{"rendered":"J S Watts' 'Skin'"},"content":{"rendered":"

Skin<\/span>
 <\/span>
This started out taut <\/span>
as some notes upon skin<\/span>
but my skin\u2019s too thin<\/span>
and let\u2019s other things in.<\/span>
It\u2019s a form of osmosis<\/span>
new words just soak in<\/span>
so the poem I finish<\/span>
won\u2019t be the one I begin.<\/span>
 <\/span>
The hide on this poem<\/span>
is like a balloon<\/span>
that expands and expands<\/span>
\u2018til it rivals the moon<\/span>
that fat angel face<\/span>
who\u2019s long lost her chin<\/span>
so how many angels<\/span>
can fit on a pin?<\/span>
 <\/span>
But each month she diets<\/span>
and grows painfully thin<\/span>
her guts fade away<\/span>
the outside leaks in<\/span>
until she becomes <\/span>
size o again.<\/span>
 <\/span>
I\u2019d like my own dermis<\/span>
to shrink to a grin<\/span>
to laugh off the chips<\/span>
the red wine and the gin<\/span>
but the leather\u2019s too old<\/span>
to flex like a fin.<\/span>
 <\/span>
Too much weight lost<\/span>
and this bag starts to sag<\/span>
\u2018til it hangs on my scaffold<\/span>
like a weather worn rag<\/span>
so I\u2019ll flaunt this old pelt<\/span>
like a well practiced sin<\/span>
and just learn to love<\/span>
the skin that I\u2019m in.<\/span>



*J.S.Watts<\/a>\u2019 poetry appears in British, Canadian and American publications including: Acumen, Envoi and Orbis. Her collection, Cats and Other Myths<\/span>, is published by Lapwing Publications.    <\/span>
<\/font><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Skin This started out taut as some notes upon skinbut my skin\u2019s too thinand let\u2019s other things in.It\u2019s a form of osmosisnew words just soak inso the poem I finishwon\u2019t be the one I begin. The hide on this poemis like a balloonthat expands and expands\u2018til it rivals the moonthat fat angel facewho\u2019s long lost her chinso […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-356","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-prose-poetry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/356","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=356"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/356\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=356"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=356"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=356"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}