Poem Renaissance – Merna Dyer Skinner

Gyroscope Review is celebrating National Poetry Month with a Poem Renaissance, a review of previously published poems looking for new life and new views. Every day through May 20^th, a new poem to fall in love with all over again.

Woman, Spotted
by Merna Dyer Skinner
After Veruska Vagen’s dot de verre mosaic
“The White Hat” (fused glass mosaic)

Beneath / your white hat
Taylor Swift / red lips / languid
Daisy Buchanan / eyes / blue / daring
me / Step closer / No / Too close
your allure / blurs / From a distance /
your visage / emerges / Pure / color
glass dots / converge / Sixteen hundred / fired /
fused to window glass / backed / in black
I see / reflecting / in your pane /
my torso / juxtaposed / below / your face /
My face / too / endured fire / blistered
beneath summer sun / burn damage /
hidden deep / last layer / of my epidermis /
percolating / miniscule / basal cells /
pure cancer / spots / waiting / twenty years
to surface / scars / visible / close-up

First published by The Museum of Northwest Art—website
September 2023 La Conner, Washington.

Merna Dyer Skinner (she/her) is a poet and communications consultant living in Portland, OR. Her poems appear in numerous US and international journals, including: SWWIM, Whale Road Review, Chiron Review, Gyroscope Review, Rust & Moth, ONE ART, and The Baltimore Review, among others, and six anthologies. She was a finalist in Crosswinds last Poetry Contest. Her chapbook, A Brief History of Two Aprons, was published by Finishing Line Press. Merna is currently editing an anthology of fishing poems by female poets.

Don’t forget to read the Spring 2025 Issue, available now, online and in print

Previous Renaissance Poets

April Poets

May Poets