Carla Schwartz
Playing blind man’s bluff I tripped on a sprinkler and got
the cut
to beat
all cuts
the blade
slices
the flesh
down
to bone
of hock
all pink
before
the blood
the shock
the Doc
the stitches—
34 out
in 17—
the scar
I wore
at 10
like a badge
shown off
to anyone
who asked
or didn’t
aged now
barely seen
but look
close—
my calf
the smooth
once gaping
opening
now filled in
a river
of skin.
Carla Schwartz’s poems have appeared in her collections Signs of Marriage, Mother, One More Thing, and Intimacy with the Wind. She received the New England Poetry Club E.E. Cummings Prize. Learn more at https://carlapoet.com, or on all social media @cb99videos. Recent/upcoming curations: Contemporary Haibun Online, Drifting Sands, Great Weather for MEDIA, Modern Haiku, Paterson Literary Review, and Spank the Carp.