19 April

Day 19

No prompt - Everyone has been posting photos of themselves at 20 today - I am no exception. This poem is inspired by that photo

Relic

Everyone was beautiful at 20, 21

or at least, fresh and unwritten,

hardly touched. In this photo

my skin is almost blank.

I feel that it would have this texture-

cold and milky, if I stroked my face.

Everyone was beautiful at 20, 21

It's a wand I hold here, I swear,

between my fingers' index, little white

like magic or a weapon-

O I was sophisticated,

keeping my hands mouth busy

with the cheap, tar alchemy.

It's a wand I hold here, I swear

I am hardly out of girl,

my face still plump, unmade-

poor moonlike me,

Men would pursue me down the street

to tell me of the phases of my look

Imagine this now.

I am hardly out of girl

I am smiling, but not smiling;

only I can tell-

too many bangles weighing down my arms,

copper and verdigris .

I'm glad I found myself adorned and saved

like an important burial, perhaps a princess.

I am smiling, but not smiling

I hardly recognise myself

but I remember everything this archive holds-

the ancient books of gold,

the paper burning down, the smoke, years gone

when I should have been writing that essay,

long overdue, on Paradise Lost.

I hardly recognise myself