March 14, 2008

Markings [liz]

The markings on our body tell a story
Some wish to forget and some grateful you can’t
We fall, get pushed, punched, burned, or worse
Our skin doesn’t forget, recording a testimony with new tissue
When I bare my ankles to the world, my scar reads,
You wouldn’t even have this leg if it weren’t for me.
Others, more mundane:
A mosquito bite in the sticky August air
A quick knick off a sharp corner
The bumpy face of adolescent humility—
They write our memoirs

Sun gives life and takes away our years
Leaving inverted constellations to examine
Choice and a needled pen create art beneath the layers
Metal studs fill holes of emptiness revealing a concealed beauty
These impressions mark time and place
But all they tell isn’t enough
It’s only the surface

2 comments:

  1. not to be theological, that's just how I think sometimes, but your poem is incarnational to me. it says that the physical does tell a story and does matter but also points to something beyond the apparent.

    favorite line:
    "Sun gives life and takes away our years"

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  2. I love this... You've hit on something so true - our bodies tell so much about ourselves, and yet so little.

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