Left elbow broken at the age of three
and never quite corrected, bending rogue,
impeding push-ups, locking
me into a childhood of purple
participation ribbons. Left ankle, thick
from decades of sprains and fractures,
stiff and reluctant and no doubt
a site of arthritis to come. Left
eye, weak, taking in a blur through pop-bottle
glasses lens, its right-side partner compensating,
always overworked, doing its best but leaving
me clumsy and anxious. Left corner
of my mouth, scarred from a winter’s
collision with dense, untended branches
at the base of a snow-covered hill,
an evening’s sledding brought to a bloody
halt, a lump of lip growing where no lump
should be, a red crack at the edge
of each self-conscious school-photo smile.
The next-to-smallest finger of my left hand,
embedding my ring in its bulging flesh,
a fat tree swallowing a chain-link fence.
