We switched doctors often.
They asked too many questions.
How exactly did you break that arm?
When whacked, my knee never kicked back.
What if it had
with the momentum of apples
falling from the family tree?
The fields of my youth flattened
into burnt cream, curdled
over stripes of mud-pressed hay.
Limbs were swaddled
with blood-stained t-shirts.
Uncles missing thumbs and trigger-fingers—
I remember their rough nubs of scar tissue
tapping my forehead where a priest rubbed ashes.
I lost my father