Scars Left Behind

These are neither ritual cuts under the left eye of a married man, nor those forehead to chin, proving Prussian manhood. I speak here of geometries describing present then gone, marking disassembly within the flesh drawn upon. My father’s traced excavation, down from the throat, under seventh rib to spine; cracked open, the dark parts scooped out, replaced by I don’t know what. My mother’s marks recorded her history of loss and pain, loss and pain, dissertations in white script, writ on the body that breathed me to life. My own trace flaws gone sensitive to touch in the corpus of knowing myself. Jack Jordan