The bark grows back.  
Recovers around the wound
and reinvents beauty again.  
Gnarled layers of pulp
and weeping resin,
a twisted limb: nothing
to regret.  That’s what
I tell myself.  I can’t really speak
for the tree, can’t know its
memory of injury or grief.
This aging trunk maps
ordinary life, accumulated
repair from storms and
other assaults, even from fire.
A year ago today, they burned me
for the last time, after blade
and poison had completed
their work.  Now I keep
my new hair short,
close to the source of growing;
my right side guards itself
relentlessly.  A blue dot
the size of a freckle
permanently reminds me where
they aimed the beam, light
fierce enough to kill.
The scars cut deeper than anyone
sees.  Except, perhaps, the trees.