When I was very small
I fell
In my grandmother’s
Gravel driveway
And got a rock stuck in my lip.
You can barely make out
The scar
From behind the stubble now,
But it’s there.
Then when I was ten,
I fell on a fence I was climbing,
And got a long deep one
From the bottom of my spine
To about the middle of my back.
This has been the basis
Of many romantic fabrications.
I got another a year or so later
When I dreamed Indians
Were burning down my hallway.
I got out of bed,
Threw my guinea pig cage across
The hall
And punched my hand through the window,
Ostensibly to save my little brother
And myself
From the marauding Indians.
Girls don’t leave scars
when they break your heart,
Neither do suicides.
But I’ve got tons of little ones
On my knees and my hands
From bike crashes, school fights,
And an assortment of other things.
I just got another one a little ago.
I was taking a spaghetti au gratin
I had made for the kids for dinner
(the wife is working late) out of the oven,
And I touched my right knuckle
To one of the enflamed irons in the gas
Oven,
And the flesh is already oozing,
Already rising, pink and angry.
The dinner was good--I didn’t drop the dish--
And we listened to Branford Marsalis
And talked about Cyrus the Great, wondering
How he died in his battle with
The invading Massagetai tribes;
I think he was shot with a dozen arrows,
My oldest thinks he was run-through.
My youngest--just learning to talk--said some
Poignant gibberish,
And we moved on.
The spaghetti scar is only lightly throbbing now,
And I’m blowing on it from time to time. I don’t
Know if it will stay long,
But I think it’s my favorite.
White Raised Flesh
Spencer Troxell lives in Cincinnati with his wife and kids. He’s 26. Keep up with him at spencertroxell.blogspot.com