Today's poem is by Amorak Huey

For So Long, I Was Foolishly Proud of The Scar on My Thumb
       

I wanted to be a man
until I met enough men

to know better. The pain
of understanding that arrives too late

is the teeth of handsaw
against skin, a mistake

while dragging away limbs
after a storm; I rend

my flesh like wax,
a wound that's worse

when I look at it. My own blood,
the white of my bone

exposed. Bleached, dying
coral. Ashed-over desert,

one dry lakebed
after another. I thought

I was helping. I thought
I was restoring order. I have

no excuse for the damage
I have done. Men are killing

the world. My skin will heal.
Will knit a pale contrail

across the smaller sky of my body.
Will still be the skin of a man.

Copyright © 2024 Amorak Huey All rights reserved
from ONLY POEMS
Reprinted by Verse Daily® with permission