skin

by Annie Cowell

Birth gave you a strawberry;

its succulent crimson

fading now -

waiting for a lover’s kiss.

White line on your knee

   a 

     fall

          in the park.

The knuckle you sliced 

with an army knife.

That patch on your back 

which itches when 

the seasons change.

Your skin, my son, 

I know it like my own.

Annie Cowell grew up in Marske-by-sea a fishing village steeped in history and folk tales. Twenty years ago, she swapped a London career for teaching amidst the olive groves of Cyprus. Her agented debut novel, “The Moon Catcher” is on submission and she now writes full-time.