The Seven Wounds

They say the first wound is the father the mother
the teacher the lover the white pill fat with sleep
I close my eyes and EAT EAT EAT

The second was first to slice me open,
But you’ll never find the scar!
Once it hurt to leave you —
Now it isn’t very hard.

I can barely remember the third but I remember reading poetry
and playing charades in the swamp so swollen in green and how
difficult it is to tell between a wound or a womb when both open
how difficult to accept something could be born to be bled out.

The fourth a blunt force or a bruise braised black
stuffed and stewing and simmered and skewered
sick-to-death of sweating it out in your cooking pot
while my legs grew long touched by so many hands!

The fifth not a wound but a chemical burn
karmic scrupulosity chlorine-scrubbed clean.
Now the works of the flesh are manifest,
now the work of the body breeds its black lump.

The sixth wound made by that
barefoot beggar orphaned jester
with his magic bag of magic beans
planting songs and planting weeds
(much madness is the thief of kings)

The seventh wound is my body besides your body
your body a wound that emits its own warmth,
our bodies the warmth of the wound.