Homemade Butterfly Stitches
With the family gathered
around the kitchen table
at Christmas time,
my grandfather tells us the tale
of his bandaged hand.
A slip of a pocket knife
while opening the mail.
Thank goodness Grandma
wasn’t home.
Went clear through.
Thank goodness I keep
a stack of these handkerchiefs
next to me.
His only complaint,
that the wound
makes pushing himself around
in his wheelchair painful.
And just as he has,
the story moves on
to something else.
A fox in the backyard,
Laying out seed for the birds.
Another snowfall.
You mean you didn’t
go get it looked at?
No stitches?
He laughs.
Around here
we take care of things ourselves.
He is held together
with homemade butterfly stitches
and gauze.
A trick he learned in the army.
Around here
there is no time to waste
on waiting.
If you can get it done yourself,
why wouldn’t you?
And this is the same speech
my mother gave
when she cut the tip of her finger
off with a knife,
stuck it back on,
wrapped it in a bandage
and continued making dinner.
Around here
we hold ourselves together
with homemade butterfly stitches
and continue reading the mail,
making the family dinner,
because life is too short
to waste on fuss and drama.
Around here
we take care of ourselves
and move on.
What is life without
a few battle scars?
What is life if not
a constant stitching up
and moving on?
Happy New Year, all!
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