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
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