The Wound


Not a festered mouth of flaccid skin
crusting with gore,
a leaking envelope of ichor,
a bloody, jagged grin;

Not a bluing, browning, new contusion
gesturing vaguely
toward its dull pain blotch, more ugly
with each day's yellow effusion;

And not the shatterings of a bone-in-pieces
lost in a cast,
unbreathing in a balm of plaster,
reformed with calcic creases;

But worse: the non-existence of your letter - 
no cicatrix
reminding me that hurt can fix
itself, restitch the tatters.  




Daryl L. Houston