Wounds

Each wound contains

its own beauty—

blunt trauma indigo

walled below pale blue eyes,

the gashed leg

filigreed with blood,

an abdomen scored

by a surgeon’s blade

each layer yielding

with its own sigh,

the biopsy site healed

in a straight red line.

Each wound speaks

its own language,

every incision, slash,

cut-down and scar

in this hospital where

bruise is not a metaphor.

Here the body’s art

conspires with destruction,

and violence surprises

with beauty so intense

the eyes of all beholders

must learn to be blind.

Dr Berlin has been writing a poem about his experience of being a doctor every month for the past 26 years in Psychiatric Times in a column called “Poetry of the Times.” He is instructor in psychiatry, University of Massachusetts Medical School, Worcester, Massachusetts. His latest book is Tender Fences.