my grandmother has a needle thin darkish line
on the inside of her left upper arm
chiseled by years of wear and tear, and also Michelangelo
created by happenstance and a metal fishing hook
but that’s not what matters...
what matters is the cold brush of metal
against the older man’s enlarged withered earlobe
and the straight whiteness of his lips
as well as his cheeks and cavities in his neck
and the emptiness of his eyes,
because, as his daughter well knows
when her tearfilled betrayed sockets
later reach his, lacking in expression and defenceless
he was already dead years before
he pulled that trigger

my father as a pink immortal mark
on the inside of his left upper arm
where it is less bearlike and hairless
and once the corner of an AC punctured
but that’s not what matters...
what matters is how
the rough fibers of the daughter’s belt
rub against her rapidly thinning waist as she walks
and the dark sagging circles beneath her eyes
those same eyes; since when are they so significant?
those same eyes that glared
at her father- the old man
that same scowl and bitter words
tasting of vinegar and fermented teenage angst
directed at the calm curling flames of her husband’s hair
as she threatens to leave the accused fiend
after all, now he is little more than a substitute
for the man her life centered around
but left in the first place
she is only returning the favor

there is a fat worm-like fading stripe
across the inside of my left upper arm
where the sharp of glass through cheap trashbag
sliced through the tender fatty skin
but that’s not what matters...
what matters is the soggy pieces of pancake,
drowned in natural syrup and forgotten
her son, his grandson
absently pushes around his plate
as he listens to his parents shouting
and the tear on the inside of
the left upper arm of his winter jacket
that he’s not telling anyone about

his is the scar that matters