Scab

Do you remember what it felt like---

picking at a scab?

You used your fingernail to work one tiny bit up off your skin,

an edge, one brown crusty bit, easy, easy now.

You pulled it up in tiny increments,

wincing as it tore away from the live skin around it,

the new flesh under it.

Tiny sparklers of pain exploded in your head

over and over but you wouldn't stop pulling, picking, easy now.

Your mouth was a pained pucker, wasn't it?---

as your scab ripped--- maybe halfway---

and there it is! ---the rose coloured gash,

the moist, deep, open crevice

of unborn flesh.

It was almost, almost off.

And you gathered yourself and

squinched your eyes

and tore it away allatonce. Ahhhh oowww.

You squeezed the wound

and bit your lip and

you held the scab between thumb and forefinger,

examining its scrofulous underside,

peering from that to the exposed and burning

mauve slash, bright and wet,

prematurely thrust into the light.

You could feel it, couldn't you?

drawing into itself, drawing, drying, trying

to gather the sides of itself together

instinctively afraid

of invisible invading infection?

You didn't care. You didn't care.

The ugly part was gone.

You could start again.

24/02/00