On Poets and Scar Tissue
How the two fester at odds with each other,
poets and scar tissue.
The poet pulling off scabs, peeling back
the layers and scrubbing the skin raw;
the scar tissue glazing over the wound,
smoothing the suture, bridging the cut.
Imagine sticking the words onto paper,
stitching them on, tacking to keep them from tumbling,
as they do, off the page and into soft fissures.
How can they enter the organs,
if not through the cracks?
This modern fascination with laser surgery,
scouring wrinkles, hiding age-lines, tucking in bulges!
Poets want to gut the fish, rip open the stuffing,
scoop out the pumpkin-guts, let things
hang where they will.
The healing
in the opening.
Word-salve from wounds.
~ Kate Marshall Flaherty
Kate Marshall first full books of poetry, entitled “Tilted Equilibrium†and “String of Mysteries,†are published by Hidden Brook Press (2006, 2008). Her latest chapbook, “Hobbeldehoy,†is published by Lyrical Myrical Press (2008). She won the 2006 Shaunt Basmajian Chapbook Award for her Chapbook, entitled “Unfathom”, won second prize in the 2007 Silver Hammer Poetry Award, and was shortlisted in 2006 for both the Pablo Neruda Award for Poetry and the Descant Best Canadian Poem. She has been published in journals such as Other Voices, THIS Magazine, Ascent Aspirations and Freefall, to name a few. In 2007 she was part of Canada’s National Random Acts of Poetry week, “poeming” people in hospitals, cafes, parks, yoga classes, ESL intensives, and in Parks and even Rec. vehicles! Rosie Fernandez of CBC followed her on her “poeming spree” in the Distillery District, which you can catch on CBC’s “Words at Large” podcast #77. She lives in Toronto with her husband John and three spirited children. Poetry is her lifeline.
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