The Surgeons

I do not know
who covered me
in sutures
while I slept. Did I
look so in need of
repair as to earn a
body now embroidered in
stitch after stitch of
coarse black thread?

All I can do now is
deal with it
what's done is done
I move gingerly
from bed to bathroom
and back
trying not to pull, or
strain, or pop I
cannot bathe
this warm washcloth will
have to do for
my sore
and raw
and punctured flesh.

I sit on the
edge of the unmade bed and
close my eyes
this is where I go

1945 and those
black and white
photographs of field hospitals with
rows and rows and
rows of beds and men and
the surgeons
moving down them quick and sure and
slicing skin with scalpels and
cracking chests and breastplates and
plunging hands in
fingers fanned and reaching
over and over and
over again
for the heart
for their hearts
the copper salt smell of
hot blood and the
firm and pulsing meat
in their grabbing hands just to know
just to know
just to know

that its there
that its there and
that it is

alive
alive
alive.