The Way Back

The original wound is the loudest
beneath the skin. Fester, screech, fester screech.
The bound and latched wade through
swamp waters mineral as blood
drops into the muck, seals itself
as iron. Years, years later
the mud is thick and green and
riddled with forgotten star-matter.

I can feel the wound opening
now. Dark at 4:30 PM, the city
creaks and roars. A small Guatemalan
woman pushes a laundry cart down
Elizabeth Street. She has a mango
in her sweatshirt pocket. Her child
has been asleep in a dark room since
noon, alone in her constellation of dreams.
The woman wheels the cart forward,
presses the round fruit with her fingers
to feel the fibers and juice beneath the skin.
Much later, from her window, she will watch
the traffic snarl, crawl, snarl, crawl.
Taillights pooling like blood in a corroded vessel.