Because too dumb or too proud to ask
a doctor, trainer, coach, another player,
and enough of both to have put my elbow
through a window during a pissing match
with my dad that had too long bladdered,
I somehow convinced myself I couldn’t hit,
with those forty-seven stitches in my arm,
on the first day of full pads football practice.
So I unscrewed the mirror from the door
of my dorm room and set it on my desk.
The Witch Hazel already poured upon a pair
of old toe nail clippers, I propped my elbow
upon the mirror to spy the rows of sutures.
Then, in the swelter of a ninety-degree day,
as sweat dripped and puddled in its own
reflection, I began to snip and tug, one by
one, the black whiskers from the wound
that would never heal right, would always have
a fat and tender scar and would tear open
every day for every season of that game,
in spite of all gauze, bandages and butterflies,
and bleed and bleed, as if I had wanted it to.
Behold, Here is My Mark
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