Accumulated Self, Illustrated Man

The Moirai (Scars of Memory)

My cicatrix
runs from solar plexus to umbilicus:
an old laparotomy, badly sewn.
I’m scarred with years:
events crisscross my skin,
harden, burn and bleed again.
Wars, disasters, tank tracks
gouge my thighs, my back;
wire and shrapnel slice my arms.
Cadavers and genocides
fill the mirror. I feel them crawl,
my skin a map of shell holes,
craters, rolling scars.

We seem absurd,
falling through the looking glass
to find ourselves in Lisbon,
sipping golden whiskey,
tapping screens, reading news.
Vaccinated, childlike.
we’re free to drink, to love,
to play, grow old together.
Is it good? Do we care?
O Clotho and Lachesis, keep sewing
until Atropos snips the final thread
and silver darkness heals us all.

The Moirai (Scars of Memory)

My cicatrix
runs from solar plexus to umbilicus:
an old laparotomy, badly sewn.
I’m scarred with years:
events crisscross my skin,
harden, burn and bleed again.
Wars, disasters, tank tracks
gouge my thighs, my back;
wire and shrapnel slice my arms.
Cadavers and genocides
fill the mirror. I feel them crawl,
my skin a map of shell holes,
craters, rolling scars.

We s…  (read more)