The Burn of Clean, Deep Brown

The small cut on her finger,

red and open, a thin red line.

Someone said, 'Get the iodine.'

The smell hit me first, metallic and sharp,

that ancient tang of antiseptic dread.

And then the sting, a sudden, fiery carp

biting into skin, a pain you never shed

from memory. The cotton swab, so white,

then bleeding to a bitter, rusty brown.

A harsh promise of future light,

a burning healing to put me down

into the knowing of hurt, and then the mend.

It doesn't fade, that sting, it doesn't end.