I had to check the state of my body
so I cut my arm in half at a discreet point.
It was a little damp but generally firm.
I peered back at early forgotten years
marked in faint and narrow rings,
a dent from the time I fell off my bike,
swollen hoops from long summers of football
smooth perfect circles of early adulthood,
a grey band from times I should have known better.
Some rings are warped and tear stained.
Tiny cracks appear in the thirtieth
and the thirty-sixth, pale like the moon at dusk,
emerging above the bone into the embrace of wiser years.
so I cut my arm in half at a discreet point.
It was a little damp but generally firm.
I peered back at early forgotten years
marked in faint and narrow rings,
a dent from the time I fell off my bike,
swollen hoops from long summers of football
smooth perfect circles of early adulthood,
a grey band from times I should have known better.
Some rings are warped and tear stained.
Tiny cracks appear in the thirtieth
and the thirty-sixth, pale like the moon at dusk,
emerging above the bone into the embrace of wiser years.