[Susan McLean]

The Year of the Snake

I have peeled off my skin again.
Shedding the seamless life I'd made
feels blistering, like being flayed.
I'm more unshielded than I've been
in decades. Aching, raw, bereft,
I search for any salve to numb
the oozing wound that I've become,
still reaching back for what I left.

How much I wish I could refuse
the price of living: to outgrow
the skintight sheath of all I know
and all I care about; to lose
my job, my house, my town, my friends,
as one life starts and one life ends.

Revisions:
L3 . was ,
L4 "shaky" was "rattled"; then line was "and I'm more shaky than I've been"
L8 "for" was "toward"
L12 ; was ,

[Glenn Wright]

Hi, Susan—

I like this poem very much. You present in clear, straightforward language the image of the snake painfully shedding its skin as a metaphor for the paradoxical dissatisfaction, regret, and sense of confinement we experience when we achieve the life we planned and worked so hard for. Or perhaps it represents the pain of having to start over when a catastrophic change in circumstances (death of a loved one, wildfire, serious illness, loss of a job) upends the carefully crafted life we built. Fine work!

Glenn

[Susan McLean]

Glenn, I've read that major change (good or bad) is traumatic, and that the more major changes you deal with at the same time, the worse the trauma. I started writing this poem in 2018 when I retired, but I didn't get very far with it because I was too depressed to write. Ironically, going back to it now, in the actual Year of the Snake, I was finally able to complete it. Though I am specific about what I was losing, I wanted to leave the content open enough that it could apply to others dealing with change in their lives. I am glad it worked for you.

Susan

[Rick Mullin]

Hi Susan,

This is about as close as you can come to a perfect sonnet! All I can say is congrats.

Rick

[Roger Slater]

Did you intend "rattled" to be a pun on rattlesnake? I couldn't help but think of it that way, but it struck me as a distraction and out of place given the overall tenor of the poem.

L6 suggestion: "I'm searching for a salve to numb", and maybe in L8 change "still" to "and".

[Susan McLean]

Rick, I'm bowled over that you think so.

Roger, yes, since I was writing about snakes, I knew that "rattled" would evoke rattlesnakes. But I don't see that as inappropriate. The snake rattles when it is rattled itself. Being devastated can make a person dangerous, too. "Any salve" was supposed to be open-ended and suggestive of all the negative ways people choose to numb pain. I don't think "a salve" would have the same impact. I think the "still" also carries weight, because one can't go back, but that doesn't stop one from wanting to.

Susan

[Julie Steiner]

Hi, Susan! I enjoyed this.

I wonder if L1's meter could benefit from making the iambs a bit more driving:

     I'm peeling off my skin again.
or
     I've peeled away my skin again.
or
     I'm sloughing off my skin again.

vs. the double iamb of
     I have peeled off my skin again.

(Maybe I just don't like double iambs.)

[R. Nemo Hill]

Yes, Susan, this is quite good.
Though L4 still seems not quite right.

Nemo

[R. Nemo Hill]

I don't think naked really works since it is nakedness that is longed for in S2. Being peeled/blistered/flayed implies more of a wounded state whose psychological reflection might be something like undone (though that presents some metrical problems). You could drop the and, making that clause its own sentence.

I'm more undone than I have been
in decades.

Nemo

[Roger Slater]

That's not how I read S2. I read it that she wants to be able to "refuse to . . . outgrow the skintight sheath," etc., because the "price of living" is to outgrow that sheath but it's too painful. She doesn't want to shed that skin, but life forces her to do it.

I think the colon disrupts the grammar somewhat, so one could piece the meaning together in two different ways, but that was my take.