Another mystery bruise
blooms above
my knee, the browned purple of a trampled
iris, my legs a garden of abused
blossoms. They sprout like volunteers, rhizomes
set but unremembered under layers
of silt. Flesh bears witness to imperfect
recall: a stab of the lover's elbow
in the crowded tub, somnambulant
collisions with phantom furniture em dash entire
histories of insult purged from the brain's
slipshod dossier, still recorded with
precision on the derma's faithful log.
Who knows just when these beds were dug, how long
hurt festers before it begins to grow?