SKIN

oh friend
how I’ve lost
and found you again
kind as a storybook nun
soft as the snake we thought
hung dead in the cat’s jaws but slipped
away flashing and free so fast
we all jumped back

Nancy White is the author of three poetry collections: Sun, Moon, Salt (winner of the Washington Prize), Detour, and Ask Again Later. Her poems have appeared in Beloit Poetry Review, FIELD, New England Review, Ploughshares, Rhino, and many others. She serves as editor-in-chief at The Word Works in Washington, D. C. and teaches at SUNY Adirondack in upstate NY.