Scars

The first, the head of a pin is its size
it lies next to the narrowest place by my right eye
where my great grandfather’s sad eyes begin,
and where eyeliner connects me to my feline friends.
It marks a surgery to help me see straight, to be
a rope on to which my eye could hold tightly.

Little brown pockmarks dot the tender skin
under my forearms
they remind me of unskilled hands
who tried to draw
from tiny, elusive veins
that didn’t want to release their crimson fluid.

There is a spider web of tissue
that forms a canyon at the back of my neck,
and like burns from boiling water it has crevices, cracks…
It hails from the hands of one who spewed lies,
perhaps inspired by Mengele.
Not all scars are physical

Bruises leave their mark,
for longer than it takes them to heal.
Iron is to skin what stain is to naked wood,
only it lasts longer
a forever reminder.

Another lights against my chest,
the opposite side of my heart,
while helping it beat.
Electricity is much more than light.
Skillful hands have opened and closed it 5 times.
Magnets read its story
but can also erase it, oh the irony.

A jagged mountainous line,
splits me down the middle
from the top of my chest bone to the end of my ribcage.
I can feel the the iron laces
that hold me closed,
they are not like too tightly pulled shoelaces.

The buzzing of a defibrillator
raises neck hairs, turns my head
I feel it spinning like a Tilt-A-Whirl at full speed…
It whips my energy into a near froth
I change the channel
medical shows hold little allure.

Energies of healing, and strength are loosed
at the sight of siren-topped trucks.
Those gentle souls have saved
more lives than just my own
many, many more lives.
Lives who have more scars than I
many, many more scars.