Poem – fading scars are fading (By Robert Beveridge)

fading scars are fading

 

Twenty-five years ago I

unloaded a truckful of books.

I’d done it a hundred times.

Seventy-pound boxes

into the back of the store,

ten, twenty, before the bolt

that jutted from the door handle

caught my elbow. Three-inch

tear extended the inner crease

of my left arm. As the manager,

what can you do? I wrapped it

in duct tape, finished the job.

 

Now I look down, run my fingers

over skin, feel only smoothness.

Even the white has faded

like my days in retail, now

seems just another wrinkle.

 

Author Bio:

Robert Beveridge makes noise (xterminal.bandcamp.com) and writes poetry just outside Cleveland, OH. Recent/upcoming appearances in Wildflower Muse, Noble/Gas Qtrly, and The Ibis Head Review, among others.