Skin

Lefiefri

Obedient daily dress,

You cannot always keep

That unfakable young surface.

You must learn your lines —

Anger, amusement, sleep;

Those few forbidding signs

Of the continuous coarse

Sand—laden wind, time;

You must thicken, work loose

Into an old bag

Carrying a soiled name.

Parch then; be roughened; sag;

And pardon me, that

I Could find, when you were new,

No brash festivity

To wear you at, such as

Clothes are entitled to

Till the fashion changes.

Philip Larkin