Bruise

My broken knuckles have bruised
more times than I have bones to count them.
My bones have broken bones, my skin has scraped skin.
I am never in my best form, except when I swing.
Even playground fists, sand under the nails,
knew how to scratch, peel, bruise.

The morning I was born, or the mourning my parents brought me.
The chemical imbalances, the chemicals I imbibe to mute them.
The sulfur of the chapel, the gasoline of the pasture.
The tannins and formaldehyde, the antibiotic ointment.
These, maybe, are the mysteries of why I bruise so well.

I breathe a prayer to the nonexistent,
forgiveness. Mine. Yours. It must work,
for this is what we invented gods for.
We lever the weight off our chests, build from blighted ribs
an altar, a Babel. Draw a meaning in the blood drawn,
which is, in the end, a fraction of your weight.

We blunt teeth, we blacken eyes, we blind and bind
and bind again what we have made, and what we haven’t.
We crack, we cut, we shear, we shatter.
We crawl into another bed for succor,
wrapping arms, entwining knuckles.

Not one of us many-mottled bodies deserves the others.