I
Own casual scars
A Japanese knife once
Carved,
Its orange handle,
Slippery in an injured hand,
Its ardent flush
Riding reluctantly
On the metal edge;
And shining like nothing but
A violent sculpture of
Grace,
I became, in delicate sharpness,
Its warrior, its face-
Writing pride
In my soft, poetic skin;
Allowing (as if I had control)
Its splattered blood
To paint passionate words of woe;
Remembering such painful cuts,
Tracing their design-
As if that could spell relief,
Or that my poetry of stitches
Might scar its way back
Into action.