How To Heal

It’s been nine months since I cut my
Finger nearly to the bone, September
2022, the knife laying indifferently
On the counter as the blood gushed

Across the kitchen tiles, across
Everywhere, six stitches three hours
Later in the Jefferson County West
Virginia emergency room. I was alone

And I have remained mostly alone since,
Grown alone, six weeks later severing
The black sutures one by one,
The scar a bas-relief moon waxing

Pink upon my right index finger.
Understandably, no one especially cares
About a forty-eight year old man with
Six stitches in his finger. We all know

He’s going to be fine, eventually, applying
Neosporin to the weeping wound each night
After he brushes his teeth. Still, nine months
Seems like something, doesn’t it?

Holy. Delivering. My skin healed first
Then slowly the nerves, my fingertip
No longer a numb wooden nuisance
But one morning wholly sensitive

Once more. The body is programmed to
Heal! All of it! Someone once told me
It’s wrong to say that healing takes time;
Instead, it requires process. Intentional process.

Of course I’m no longer talking about my finger
Here—I’m sure you already guessed at that.
Nine months means a birthday. Well, happy
Birthday, scar! I was still finding blood far

Into November, behind the toaster where
It somehow splashed, and smeared across
The back of the oven towel rack. But enough
Of all that. I trace the thick scar, recalling

Pain that was once real but now no longer
Exists. How can this be? Perhaps I worked hard,
Worked really, really hard!—worked as though
Healing was the only thing that mattered,

Surrendering again and again until, intent on
The process, passionate, indefatigable, I awoke
In May to find the pain spontaneously dissolved,
Replaced by burgeoning spring outside my door.