This is a self portrait.

My skin is Irish pink, the colour

of Marie Rose sauce from a jar

at a family buffet.  My skin is

flecked with red, the same red

as the blood that seeped from me

on the day my Mum began to die.

My skin is the cracked shell of

a hard boiled egg at a family

buffet.  My skin is soft like

an acrylic jumper.

This is a self portrait.

My arms are the stiff mechanism

of an old clock.  My arms poke out

from the folds of a dress like

the shy person in the corridor

at the school disco. My arms were

strong once, and they carried

children.  My arms no longer have

the strength to hold themselves.

This is a self portrait.

My eyes are the blue of the Irish Sea

reflecting a northern sky.  They’re

reading something which might be

a poem.  My eyes shrink beneath

treated glass which pinches my face

– thinning, distorting, stretching.

My irises retreat before

stringy blood vessels, pink like

tinned salmon at a family buffet.

My eyes are the same Irish blue as my

Dad and my son’s. 

This is a self portrait.

This is a woman standing naked in

front of a mirror

wondering how to draw herself.