"Bruised, Not Broken"
by
Jeanne M. Lesinski
Runaway corner cupboard
turns tables on my thumb,
crashed between door and jamb.
Subcutaneous ecchymosis thrives,
drives my hand among frozen cubes,
numbs enough the signal thumb.
I steer this white-knuckle journey
down middle-of-the-life road,
past carrefours of cares, vowing
not to retrace that costly route
through black-and-blue depressions:
potholes, kitchen sinkholes once
drained me of life until numb.
When I shelved my "lack of boundaries"
among capsule bottles
and beloved bodies,
psychosis arrived at a cul-de-sac.
Now, as then, my compass-
solely bruised, not broken-
its nacreous nail under pain
clotted, rewarms by degrees.