Wounded
In the world of a thousand cuts, those with nine hundred are happy and whole.
Soldiers of the ordinary, you bandage your wounds in the sickly dawn. Hide them well; yours are the scars that no one loves or wants to see. A root canal, a license suspension, a burglary, termites, appendicitis are only details of a life.
You are not one of the truly wounded— those who are beaten, slashed and starved by those who gave themselves the right. Do what you must to keep them alive. Arising from their ragged flesh are history, nations, creeds.
Your job is to sweat more than you bleed.
Miles David Moore has published four books of poetry, the latest of which, Man on Terrace with Wine, appeared in 2020. He was a Top Four winner in the Maria W. Faust Sonnet Competition in 2022. He is also film reviewer for the online arts magazine Scene4.