Jessica
Scars
Your scars, we say
remember. Remember
how much you’ve healed. We say
remember the stitches, the slices
that came before. Remember
all of the time that’s passed.
We clutch your skin and sinew,
we bind and harden as we say
hold tighter. Remember your pain.
Wrap the memory in layers
of thought, while we wrap
your injuries in pink, knotted
new skin. We want you
to wear us proudly, to dare
the world to stare. We want
them to cringe, to wonder
how much you can endure.
****
I wasn’t expecting to write a poem this week. I had my to do list and I was going to be lucky if I could get it all done. Yet, as I was revising some poems (as part of my creative goals for the week), I came across a comment that my husband wrote on my poem “Stitches.” He asked what the scars would say back to me, if we were having a conversation. That side comment got me thinking and pretty soon, the scars were talking back to me.
In other weeks, I may have just swallowed the poem and moved on to my actual creative goals. But I was lucky enough to read the Read Write Poem article “How Do You Be a Poet Every Day?” by Robert Peake. The article includes this quote by Robert Hass, “Take the time to write. You can do your life’s work in half an hour a day.” After reading that quote this morning, how could I not spend my waiting room time scribbling this poem draft?
