Let me see your scar.
My G.P. said,
a thin white line, nine inches long.
Where the surgeon with one practiced stroke,
had calmly sliced through my living flesh.
It's very neat.
My G.P. said.
Yes I agreed,
Apart from at the top, where it is somewhat puckered.
A puckered scar, he agreed.
A puckered scar,
is that my legacy,
of the countless cigarettes smoked over years,
of the chips and pies washed down with beer,
and barely any exercise?
I had looked in the mirror,
on the morning of my 'Op'
after I had showered, when my chest I'd cleaned a lot.
No scar then, just a clean chest,
but now a puckered scar.
There are other marks on my body left by the surgery.
Apart from the neat white line.
Like the wounds left by an assassins bullets, or a Zulu's assegai thrust,
where the drains from my chest were removed.
The scars are there to remind me.
It's no longer a puckered scar,
the skin has smoothed out,
but it is still a scar,
nine inches long.
A thin white line in my living flesh.