Stippled freckled
flecked dappled
such is the skin
with which I’ve lived
all these years
and proudly so

and age has brought
fresh blotches blemishes
that I prefer to call
the spoils of experience
spring chicken no longer
now more akin
to the speckled hen

in another creation
I might have been
a handsome spotted thrush
with over one hundred
melodic phrases
to my name: but who am I
to speculate as to
what might have been

John Lyons