Sandy

Sandy is breaking

Her face is cracked, roasted leather

A bad good marriage drained her

Twenty years at the back of a shelf

Three grown children her medals

They saved her from herself

She can't stop the smokes

It's calming, good for Crohn's

But the darkside of her teeth is black

She doesn't know but when she laughs

A belly laugh, her head thrown back

There's tarmacadam layered thick

And how she loves the sun!

That mole could surely kill her

Does she know how it looks?

Has she held up mirror next to mirror?

Swollen, shrivelled - raw and cooked

Inside she twinkles, she's twenty

A new man came to love her

He fills her up, she runs on empty

Sandy was adopted, sent away

She made herself lovable

And how that family loved her!

Without the nuances of kin 

The too close for comfort DNA

How has she stayed so slim?

From the back, in jeans, she's a mere bud

Less than thirty I'd have betted

But her face has blossomed, fruited, bletted

She shines on, but what remains

When all the bodywork has gone?

Surely not just a hole

Her energy - a dancing flame

Sandy I'm repulsed and yet I love your soul