“Muscles have a long memory,”
said the doctor twenty years ago.
A tear from tugging honeysuckle vines,
hefting a five pound sack,
results in a week of pulsing pain.
My workout routine, weights too heavy,
“Feel the burn,” in those ruby fibers
just over the sternum and around the shoulder,
a weakness not found on X-rays.
Some wounds may be older than old, even before
stored memory. Did I get one of Adam’s
lesser ribs, defective misfit testing its cage?
It’s what’s written underneath, skeletal,
another self, Neanderthal DNA?
I may never heal, always some vestige,
perhaps a bud where wings
might have been, the Gods taking
a break when I was formed,
no one in charge, just me whirling cyclonic,
flying too close to a jagged escarpment.
Injury happens so often, my reaction
is like a fine whine. It does help to write,
alone, gnawing on my little cuttlebone.