print previewback BRUCE BOND
Scar 22
The tender regions of the brain are sheltered
in the numb. It keeps them tender, safe,
like the windows of a house in the woods
in a purity of night apart from the others.
I had a friend whose mother ended it all
on his small bed when he was off at school.
Then he slept on it for weeks. Imagine.
He was good enough to me, I guess,
but aloof from his lovers. His mother slept
among them all. It made him special,
to speak with such odd calm about pain
as someone well acquainted with his subject.
If he cried, he did not recall. If a smell
troubled his sleep, sleep alone would know. 