Under the Mend

The report sits open, a sterile white sheet.

My thoughts snag, refuse to meet

the bullet points, the numbers, stark and clean.

My hand strays, finds the old scene

on my arm, that raised line,

a pale geography, a stubborn sign.

And then the itch. Not surface deep,

but from the bone, where memories sleep

and then awake. A phantom tickle,

a small, insistent, constant pickle.

It means it's working, the doctor said,

the skin still pulling, healing, instead

of giving up.

But it pulls too tight, sometimes.

Reminds you of the fall, the crimes

of carelessness, the clumsy truth.

A ghost ache, deep within my youth.

Still knitting itself shut,

a painful, patient, stubborn cut.