digital art: ralph murre
The
Laying of Hands
by Stephen Anderson
After
the cutting,
After
the slide under the microscope,
The
herringbone stitches to the open flesh come
In
a dutiful, meticulous sewing
Of
the cancer-vacated crater in my temple,
Hybrid
birth-child now of Nature and surgeon’s handiwork
Setting
as right as possible all that had gone
So
terribly wrong in a matter of mere decades,
Now
hand-stitched and shiny like a fine, leather shoe.
~
first published in The Foundling Review