HILLS & SKIN
by Sherry S.   

As we watch another housing development erupt
and spread over the hills across the river, my mother
begins to describe what it was like to feel the skin

of her last lover. Smooth hills we've viewed for
decades have begun to spew barnacle-like clutter.
We two psoriatics prefer our surfaces neater,

impossible to experience on ourselves,
therefore that much more desirable elsewhere.
Mom enjoyed years with her caressable gent

in his remarkable packaging until he rose
into the clouds like those above the far hills
we're now lamenting. Earthbound, still

in the kinship of our roughened skin, we witness
the hills' continued barnacling while musing
on memories of our much missed men.

*****