Poem

Sometime during my hospital stay, they exchanged

my skin for clear packing tape. It does the job:

it holds me together. Sometimes, if I’m wearing

the right clothes and and I find the strength to force

a facsimile of my old smile onto my face, you

wouldn’t notice the difference. And

because it holds me together, things still

function as they should. My lungs still take breath,

my limbs still move. I cook dinner. I shop for groceries.

The washing is done, for the most part. I talk.

I move through life because life

is still there to be moved through.   

But look again and you’ll see it. I am flayed open.

Loss pounds through my veins, colours my blood.

The plastic only contains, it cannot conceal.

Even a stranger can see that the essential parts

of me are damaged now; it’s obvious with

every throb of my battered, breaking heart.