The Body Closing

It woke me at three.

Not pain—I'd had the pain

and set it down two weeks ago.

This was different:

the skin announcing its own repair,

insisting on an audience

in the dark.

I held my phone light to my palm.

A pink seam, thin,

crossing the crease.

The body doing what bodies do

regardless of what else is happening,

without being asked.

I pressed my hand flat against the sheet.

Not to stop it.

Just to feel the particular demand of it—

how healing wants your attention

exactly when you've agreed

to stop giving any.

Two weeks since the cabinet latch.

I'd nearly forgotten.

And now this—

the body declaring itself

still working,

not finished with something

I thought I'd already closed.