Peely

Rough, “peely” arms, shoulders, legs—See Angel Skin soothe, soften, cool sensitive wind-and-sun irritated skin. Rough flakiness dissolves off.

It is paper-thin and when old, peels away to reveal the richer-coloured young bark beneath. It is particularly peely on the branches especially at their junctions with the main stem where it often collects in dense, loose bunches.

No, PVC lattice won’t age like wood. Would I use it? Honestly, probably not, because I like peely paint and rotted edges. But I know not everybody is quite so romantic, and in this case I think little harm is done.

In the swarmy swimming summer / Off the ageing garden shed / I picked the peely paint / And filled in all the gaps / With fluorescent day-glo felt-tip red! / And then got sent to bed! / (It wasn’t to everybody’s taste)

Machine-gun-toting soldiers eyed us suspiciously from barricades and peely-paint-covered guard shacks.

The deck was all salt-bleached, pocked and barnacled. Rust around the cabin doors. Faded canvas on the lifeboats. Peely paint on the rows of steamer chairs.

the painted front of Someone’s Beloved Threads was all peely paint and old wood showing through. The sun at the top of the door was losing its sunface around the edges. “Erico,” I said. “I think you should paint again, on the doorway part.”

But she did strike up a relationship with a widow woman who lived in a tumble-down, peely paint, wood-frame shack down by the creek past the railroad track.