Provisional Wound Matrix
Haleigh Yaspan
Consensus says keep a wound covered, moist,
covert. Says cradle it as the womb, await
proliferative phase, as wave of the same name
carries forth the eponymous follicle.
If all goes to plan—the rain, the weeping,
then scaffolding gives way to buttressing
from tissue to crater, unseeing to unknown:
tracking the inexplicable, keeping score.
A scar a mark of maturity,
four-fifths’ former capacity at best.
The body keeps trying,
and this we call remodeling.
Haleigh Yaspan’s writing has appeared in Stoneboat Literary Journal, Cumberland River Review, Palette Poetry, California Quarterly, and elsewhere. Her scholarly work has been supported by grants and fellowships from the New York Public Library, Duke University, Florida State University, and Smith College. She lives in New York City with her husband and daughter.
