Scab
Fingers and nails, feeling the sides
of a scab in idle pleasure --
something about the hardness
roughness that is your own and yet
not your own; that edge
that your fingernail digs into,
the skin peeping from under is smooth
and thin, ripples like a plastic sheet
as you test its tenacity.
Your fingers explore. The scab
threatens to tear the new skin
along with it if you insist.
But no, you think. You think
if you do it slowly, you could just
pull the dry ugly pad off. The wound
bleeds again. A new scab will form
and this time, it will leave a scar.
(Such is the result of idle fingers...)
