After the accident, pain wanted to be seen.
Only the aperture of a machine upstairs
could spot the slim notch
scored into the driftwood mantle
of my right collar bone.
The technician left me
 
in the room alone with this part of myself
aglow on the screen. No mention
of the ribs—each slow swipe of icing
on a layer cake, shallow drift
of snow on the rim of a garden pot
left out too long. Nor the pottery
scapula or the long-handled
spoons hung to each side.
 
They have names, I remembered: radius, ulna.
But I saw the cross-work of kite frames. A cello bow.
The bunched white peony bud
of the skull, and the hatched open jaw. A body
more beautiful than the strict illustration
posted on the wall. Mine
clattered its pieces like a wind chime
 
as I stood and reached for my shirt, unfurled
cotton folds between two beaded chandeliers.
Each knuckle of light warmed
in an instant, enough to hold
each button, a hammer, any pen,
every doorknob.
 
 
 

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Lee Colin Thomas lives in Minneapolis. His work has received a Loft Mentor Series Award in poetry and an honorable mention for the Minnesota Emerging Writers Grant. Lee’s poems have appeared in Poet Lore, Salamander, The Gay and Lesbian Review Worldwide, Water~Stone Review, Midwestern Gothic, Pilgrimage, The Nassau Review, and elsewhere. Online at leecolinthomas.net