Physician

 

I want to look inside your bones and find the ancient hollows, hairline cracks and holes

inner geology, a history of your body

heaves and shallow breaths

black clouds, tectonic shifts

dark scars deep up to the surface

the weight of continents drifting to the edges, ridges rising from white planes

your skeleton is a landscape

 

mountains boil to the core, rivers icy to the source

high evergreens brave the slopes alone

snow-capped pinnacle, alpine meadow

crags above and caves below

the dried out roots of all your fears and hopes like spiny ligaments tangled in your aching joints

but I will sort them out

 

I will place them side by side in rows and put your tired arms to rest

peel back the skin of your hands, drain sinuses, veins, intestines

clean off your eyes one by one

replace your worn out heart with new blood

 

take out your memories and scrape the years off each

wipe the plaque and bitterness from your tongue and teeth, remove ten fingernails and 

plant them as seeds

fresh hands

fresh face

I’ll empty the pores of your skin, wash you and put you back together again

whole and without blemish

after all these years of hate and sadness

new flesh will clothe that ancient skeleton