by Madeleine French

Once the miniscule
shiny staples come out,
red blood cells and

collagen are already there,
tiny bricklayers
who repair the damage.

My absurd assumption
that my shoulder
would be what it
used to be, and

my comprehensive catalog
of every single person
who should have
endured this

somehow turned my incision
into a burning magenta line
of resentment.

And now I’m finding it
curiously easy
to live with that.

Madeleine French lives in Florida and Virginia with her husband. A Best of the Net nominee, her work appears in Identity Theory, The Madrigal Press, Dust Poetry Magazine, West Trade Review, Schuylkill Valley Journal, Door Is A Jar, San Antonio Review, Thimble Literary Magazine, and elsewhere. She is working on a full-length poetry collection.