Sun Damage

a poem

Photo by Aviv Ben Or on Unsplash

Sun Damage

I used to wear my freckles like Scout Finch
spinning on her tire swing in the sun. I was
innocent then, albeit a bit melancholy after
seeing a dead frog, crushed on the side of
the road at age five. Now, my dermatologist
points to the spots littering my arms and
demands, “Do you see all of this? This is
sun damage.” As if the sun could ever do
me wrong. All I remember about Her are
the shades of red She used to paint across
my eyelids when I squeezed them shut tight,
listening to the buzz of summer. You could
actually see the heat if you looked closely on
the hottest days in Lake County, California;
like a sideways, warbling, waterfall. There was
a sizzle, too, to the sand, as I laid out on a beach
towel beside my mom’s striped folding chair,
scrunching my toes and breathing in the scent
of sunscreen and yellow Starbursts. If those
moments now stain my arms with potential
cancer, and glitter my nose with age, Who shall
deliver me from this body of death? I want it all
back to live over again through my children;
the warm lake, and the melting popsicles of
moments you can’t ever take back. Who shall
separate us from the love of God? Shall divorce
or death or disappointment in ourselves or in
others? Shall small spills, large mistakes, or
facing the unknown alone? May it never be.
For I believe in even greater things for you
and for me on this side of heaven, in the right
here, right now of it all, as we watch our daughters
spin and twirl and shriek loudly under the sun.