Injury

I have a wound, see look at the cut on my hand

That’s not a wound, says the politician

You’re putting it on

To get benefits

The doctor concurs and says—

It’s nothing

I must agree

Your hand is fine

Yet there is blood, blood on the floor

So much blood

It drips from under your coat

And the room smells like iron

Put away the hand, and take off your coat

Ah, so you’re nervous—you don’t want to

You won’t show me the real wound

Even though my shoes are slick

With your blood

Listen, I am not a doctor—

I am not a politician

I don’t deal in clever lies

Called law and science

I deal in the real

Take off the coat

The others will deny the wound

For they are also bleeding

I am covered in their blood too

It’s invisible blood, by the way

That’s why few can see it

But they can smell it

Here, I have taken my coat off

To show you my scar

It is healed now

This is where the bear

Clawed me in the crib

And when he is near

I feel him in the wound

(This bear lives in the sky)

Now your coat is off

The work can begin

I wear the horns

That make me a poet

That make me a shaman

Now I will pluck the splinter

From the real wound.