Who Loves The Sun

The lump on my neck is getting smaller.

The doctor shot it with cortisone

last week.

Well, he didn’t shoot it,

his nurse did.

Now, when I reach up

to touch it, it feels more like a pea,

than the dime it used to feel like.

I don’t know why I get these lumps,

or red dots, or scales.

Maybe it's because my mother had them.

I remember watching her sit in the dermatologist’s

office in Houston, getting things frozen

and burned off and thinking how weird 

all of those little things on her body were.

Now, they are mine.  

We have the same skin.

It’s pale and thin and doesn’t like the sun

and it wrinkles more than it should.

I have my mother's skin

and I don’t like it one bit.