When we are risen, were we risen,
we should be found here with our wounds;
we may not take off the injuries done:
they are subtractions:
what's cut's been cut though fleshed over,
fleshed out by memory, into
not a glory or such pauline crap;
but strength most certainly -
less fear than the first time
blood was sighted from one's own self -
nor anything so gory
as the wounds of Christ...
I mean that all distress is permanent
as is cowardice and cruelty;
it always was so, always is:
we are what we have been although we change.
published in Poetry New York